Beverly Hills, 90210, Insecure Actress Was 64 – The Hollywood Reporter

Dennis Dawes, the busy character actress who portrayed Deputy Director Yvonne Tesley Beverly Hills 90210Judge Rebecca Damson Day Watchman The therapist is Rhonda Payne Unsafe, Die. She was 64 years old.

Dose’s death was announced on Saturday Instagram Her older sister Tracy Dawes, who praised her sister as “the most wonderful sister, an accomplished actress, model, mentor, and director. She was my best friend and finally a member of my family.”

On August 7, Tracy Wrote On Instagram, her younger sister was hospitalized and in a coma caused by a “malignant form of meningitis”.

On the big screen, Dennis Dawes emerged as the manager of Ray Charles Marilyn Andre Beam (2004), starring an Academy Award winner Jamie FoxxShe played another principal, based on a real-life teacher at Richmond (California) High School, in Coach Carter (2005), starring Samuel L. Jackson.

She said these were among her favorite roles, as was her two-episode role in 2011-12 as Yvonne Burns, Derek Morgan’s aunt from Shemar Moore, on CBS. criminal minds.

Dowse also did a lot of stage directing and was on the head Remember Me: The Mahalia Jackson Story, starring Ledisi as the legendary gospel singer. The film opened the Pan African Film and Arts Festival in Los Angeles in April.

Dowse recurred as the stern but compassionate Deputy Director of West Beverly Hills High Teasley in 23 episodes of Beverly Hills, 90210, It spans the full 10 years (1990-2000) of Fox’s success.

She then made 32 appearances as Judge Damson in the 2001-04 Simon Baker CBS drama starring Watchman Six as a healer for Molly (Yvonne Orji) in the last three seasons of Issa Ray‘s Unsafe in HBO.

Denise Yvonne Dawes was born in Honolulu on February 21, 1958. Her father was in the US Navy, and her family moved about every two years. Meanwhile, her mother was studying at school.

In 1976 while at WT Woodson High School in Fairfax, Virginia, she auditioned for a place on the traveling performance group Up With People while also applying to the US Naval Academy (that was the first year women were accepted there).

“Right as I would have taken [Academy] Physical Training Test, Father With People said, “We need an answer, we need an answer,” and I had to choose, “Lessons remember In a 2015 interview, “Would I do the Navy for my parents or was I going to do theater work for me? And she chose me.”

After graduating in 1980 from Norfolk State University and living in Germany with her parents for over seven years – she also worked in theater while abroad – she moved to Los Angeles when she was 30. Dialogue line in a 1989 episode of the NBC sitcom ALF.

“That got me to the guild, and I got an agent after that,” she said.

While she was building her acting career, she worked as an answering service operator and for five years as an office manager at the Westwood law firm.

Dowse has also been a recurring character on NBC built to stay In 1997, ABC’s Secrets and Lies In 2015-16 and Bravo charlatans in 2017-18.

She also appeared in episodes of rockAnd the SeinfeldAnd the touched by angelAnd the Buffy the Vampire SlayerAnd the NewsRadioAnd the ERAnd the party of fiveAnd the Judging AmyAnd the CharmAnd the Law and orderAnd the bonesAnd the Rizzoli and carrotsAnd the Murder in the firstAnd the 9-1-1And the instinct anatomy And the Snowfall.

Her autobiography in the film included performances in sport shoes (1992), Bio Dome (1996), Spaceship Soldiers (1997), Pleasantville (1998), Requiem for a dream (2000) and Dr. Doolittle 2 (2001).

For 18 years, Dawes has taught acting and directing at Amazing Grace Conservatory, a weekend performing arts school for students ages 8 to 18 in downtown Los Angeles.

In 2016, she directed the musical Recorded in Hollywood At the Kirk Douglas Theater in Culver City, then mentor Mock girls for Negro Ensemble in New York a year later. She won several NAACP Image Awards for her directing during her career.

Of all that, she said, “I love theatre.” “It doesn’t pay the bills, but it feeds the soul.”