Born in San Francisco to a pastor's daughter who had become pregnant out of wedlock, Ellis was sent as an infant to Mississippi, where she was raised by a grandmother on Social Security checks and food stamps. Her first experiences with performing came in the choir and plays of one of the several Baptist churches where her grandfather preached , and grew to include school speech competitions, as well.
Ellis eventually enrolled at Tougalloo College, an historically Black college in Jackson, Miss., where two instructors changed the course of her life. One, Dr., drove several students — most of whom had never been outside of the state — to New York in a rickety station wagon to see a couple of Broadway shows, which opened Ellis' mind to greater possibilities for herself. Then, Prof.
Barnhill subsequently encouraged Ellis to pursue graduate studies in acting at NYU's prestigious Tisch School of the Arts, to which she applied and was accepted. In her third and final year as a student there, the members her class was invited to audition for a Public Theatre production of Shakespeare'sunder the direction ofin a production that ultimately moved to Broadway.
Screen acting entered the picture around the same time — mostly guest starring parts in TV series and roles in indie films that never saw the light of day. "New York is a tough place, and I struggled, I struggled a great deal," Ellis acknowledges, adding, "It was disheartening." She constantly considered changing professions, but every so often a job would come along that would be financially valuable enough or creatively rewarding enough to keep her in the game.
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