S. Epatha Merkerson

## External information

**Sharon Epatha Merkerson** (born November 28, 1952) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She portrays Sharon Goodwin on Chicago Med.

She has received numerous high-profile accolades for her work, including an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, four NAACP Image Awards, two Obie Awards and two Tony Award nominations. She is best known for her award-winning portrayal of Lieutenant Anita Van Buren on the NBC police procedural drama series *Law & Order*, a role she played from 1993 to 2010. She appeared in 395 episodes of the series.

## Early life

**Merkerson** was born in Saginaw, Michigan. Her parents separated when she was five. She was one of five children raised by their mother, who worked for the United States Postal Service, **Merkerson** grew up in what she recalled to be a majority Euro-American neighborhood in Detroit.

During a segment on the January 31, 2012, episode of *The Wendy Williams Show*, when questioned about the origin of her name, Merkerson shared that "Epatha" was the name of "a grade-school teacher who was influential in keeping [her father] in school". She further went on to clarify that she prefers to be addressed as "Epatha" as opposed to "S. Epatha".

**Merkerson** graduated from Cooley High School in 1970. Initially she attended Eastern Michigan University as a dance major, but she transferred to Indiana University Bloomington thereafter. She completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in theatre at Wayne State University in 1976. She was conferred an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Wayne State University in May 2009 and received the same distinction from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in 2012, Montclair State University in 2013 and the University of Pittsburgh in 2017.

## Career

In 1978, **Merkerson** moved to Albany, New York, to join a theater company. She later moved to New York City.

**Merkerson** made her television debut as Reba the Mail Lady on *Pee-wee's Playhouse*. Merkerson has also appeared on *The Cosby Show*, among other series.

She first appeared in the NBC police procedural drama *Law & Order* in "Mushrooms" (Season 1: Episode 17) as the grief-stricken mother of an 11-month-old boy who is shot accidentally. Her performance impressed the producers enough to select Merkerson to replace Dann Florek as detective squad chief in the series' fourth season, making her one of the few actors to secure a recurring role after an initial single appearance on the show.

**Merkerson's** career began to rise after she assumed the lead role in the one-woman play "*Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill"*. That was followed by her performance as Berniece in August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize–winning play "*The Piano Lesson"*. For that, she was nominated for a Tony Award as Best Featured Actress in a Play. **Merkerson** won an Obie Award in 1992 for her work in "*I'm Not Stupid"*. Her screen credits include *Jacob's Ladder*, *Loose Cannons*, *She's Gotta Have It*, James Cameron's *Terminator 2: Judgment Day*; and *Navy Seals*. In 2006, she won a Golden Globe Award, an Emmy Award and a Screen Actors Guild award for her performance in the HBO film *Lackawanna Blues*. In 2007, she starred as Lola Delaney in the Los Angeles stage production of William Inge's *Come Back, Little Sheba*, playing the role made famous by Shirley Booth. In 2003 she also played a role in the Movie Radio, as Maggie Kennedy Radio’s mother. In January 2008 the production opened a successful run on Broadway and earned Merkerson her second Tony nomination.

On April 1, 2010, it was confirmed that after 17 seasons, **Merkerson** would leave *Law & Order* at the end of the show's twentieth season. Her departure from *Law & Order*, which aired on May 24, 2010, was also the show's final episode. In total, **Merkerson** appeared on the series for 17 consecutive seasons—395 episodes—which was more than any other actor associated with the program.

In 2012, **Merkerson** became the host of *Find Our Missing*, a reality-reenactment series on TV One which profiles missing people of color. She performed in Steven Spielberg's 2012 film *Lincoln* as Lydia Hamilton Smith, housekeeper to Tommy Lee Jones's character, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens.

In 2014, **Merkerson** appeared in the Primary Stages production of *While I Yet Live*, which was written by Billy Porter. In 2015, she joined the cast of NBC medical drama *Chicago Med* as Sharon Goodwin, Chief of Medical Services. The series was conceived and written by Law and Order creator Dick Wolf, along with Matt Olmstead, Derek Haas and Michael Brandt. Also in 2014, **Merkerson** became a spokesperson for Merck America’s Diabetes Challenge, to increase Type 2 diabetes awareness among African Americans.

## Personal life

**Merkerson** appeared on the television series of Henry Louis Gates' *Finding Your Roots* on February 5, 2019 (Season 5, Episode 5), in which he revealed that she was a descendant of Isaac Hawkins and eight others of the 272 enslaved people who were sold in the 1838 Jesuit slave sale by Jesuit priests. These priests owned plantations on which the enslaved people tilled tobacco; proceeds from the sale were used to pay off the debts of the Jesuit-operated Georgetown College (now Georgetown University).

**Merkerson** is an outspoken advocate against smoking and for lung cancer research and awareness.

From 1994 to 2006, **Merkerson** was married to Toussaint L. Jones.

Source: Wikipedia

## Notes and Trivia

* Her western zodiac sign is Sagittarius and her Chinese zodiac sign is a Dragon.
* On August 4, 2023 a question about Merkerson was featured on *Jeopardy!*: "After 17 seasons on "Law and Order", S. Epatha Merkerson got into a new line of work, running Gaffney Medical on this NBC show"

## Videos

Oliver Platt and S. Epatha Merkerson Talk All Things Med - NBC's Chicago Med
## References

1. ↑ https://twitter.com/s\_epatha/status/1687240771848527872