S. Epatha Merkerson
S. Epatha Merkerson (born Sharon Epatha Merkerson) is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has won a Golden Globe, Emmy Awards, a Screen Actors Guild Award, Obie Award, 4 NAACP Image Awards, and 2 Tony Award nominations.
She is best known for her role as NYPD Lieutenant Anita Van Buren (1993–2010) on the long-running NBC police procedural drama series Law & Order, as well as the Law & Order TV movie Exiled. She appeared in 390 episodes of the series, more than any other cast member.
She has a starring role as Sharon Goodwin on NBC's Chicago Med. She also had a recurring role as Reba (the mail carrier) on Pee-wee's Playhouse, and Ms. St. Marth on the TV series Here and Now.
She has appeared in feature films including She's Gotta Have It, Loose Cannons, Jacob's Ladder, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Random Hearts, Radio, Black Snake Moan, Lincoln (2012), and Peeples. She has also appeared in TV movies including A Place for Annie, A Mother's Prayer, Breaking Through, Lackawanna Blues, and The Gabby Douglas Story.
Known For | Acting |
---|---|
Most Rating | 20.895 |
Birthday | 1952-11-28 |
Place of Birth | Saginaw, Michigan, USA |
Also Known As | Epatha Merkerson , |
1991
Terminator 2: Judgment Day
8.116/12431
Set ten years after the events of the original, James Cameron’s classic sci-fi action flick tells the story of a second attempt to get the rid of rebe...
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Terminator 2: Judgment Day
1990
Jacob's Ladder
7.361/1568
After returning home from the Vietnam War, veteran Jacob Singer struggles to maintain his sanity. Plagued by hallucinations and flashbacks, Singer rap...
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Jacob's Ladder
2006
Black Snake Moan
6.865/841
A God-fearing bluesman takes to a wild young woman who, as a victim of childhood sexual abuse, is looking everywhere for love, but never quite finding...
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Black Snake Moan
1990
Loose Cannons
4.931/87
Mac, the two-fisted, savvy cop finds that he's being saddled with a new partner, a known burnout, to work with him on a new and difficult case. The ne...
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Loose Cannons
1999
Random Hearts
5.507/366
After losing their spouses in a plane crash, an internal affairs cop and a congresswoman find each other's keys in each other's loved ones' possession...
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Random Hearts
1986
She's Gotta Have It
6.607/312
The story of Nola Darling's simultaneous sexual relationships with three different men is told by her and by her partners and other friends. All three...
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She's Gotta Have It
2003
Radio
7.231/692
High school football coach, Harold Jones befriends Radio, a mentally-challenged man who becomes a student at T.L. Hanna High School in Anderson, South...
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Radio
2009
The Six Wives of Henry Lefay
5.3/103
A presumed-dead man's current wife and former wives squabble over his funeral arrangements.
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The Six Wives of Henry Lefay
2009
Mother and Child
6.604/140
The lives of three women have a commonality: adoption. Karen is a physical therapist who regrets that, as a teenager, she gave up her daughter for ado...
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Mother and Child
2007
Slipstream
4.981/80
Aging screenwriter Felix Bonhoeffer has lived his life in two states of existence: in reality and his own interior world. While working on a murder my...
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Slipstream
2013
Peeples
5.5/67
The story follows what happens when a child psychologist surprises his girlfriend by showing up at her political family's annual get-together at their...
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Peeples
1994
A Place for Annie
6.211/19
Baby Annie is HIV positive and has been left in the clinic by her drug addicted mother. To prevent that she's deported to a home where they'd just wai...
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A Place for Annie
2005
Lackawanna Blues
6.2/22
In a story fueled by rhythm and blues, a young boy's life is shaped by love and the stories of a cast of characters in the boarding house where he liv...
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Lackawanna Blues
2007
Girl, Positive
6.1/11
A popular high school girl finds out that a boy she slept with is HIV positive.
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Girl, Positive
2014
The Gabby Douglas Story
7.383/64
The true story of Gabby Douglas who becomes the first African American to be named Individual All-Around Champion in artistic gymnastics at the Olympi...
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The Gabby Douglas Story
1998
An Unexpected Life
4.5/4
Sequel to "An Unexpected Family."
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An Unexpected Life
1995
A Mother's Prayer
8.5/5
Rosemary Holmstrom is struggling to bring up her son following the death of her husband. When she is diagnosed with AIDS, at first she refuses to beli...
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A Mother's Prayer
2015
The Challenger
6/35
A legendary trainer comes out of retirement to help an underdog boxer fight his way to a better life.
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The Challenger
Sexual Healing
0/0
A look at the last years of Marvin Gaye's life, from his parting ways with Motown and self-imposed exile to Europe, to his relationship with Freddy Co...
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Sexual Healing
1996
After the Silence
7/11
Laura is a 20 year old deaf girl who has never been taught sign language. She is rescued from neglect and physical abuse by Pam, a social worker. Pam...
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After the Silence
2016
Year by the Sea
0/0
Hoping to reclaim who she was before marriage and children, an empty nester retreats to Cape Cod where she embarks upon a quest to set herself free.
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Year by the Sea
2016
You Can Go
5/1
A school administrator talks down a troubled student.
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You Can Go
2006
The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
0/0
The Great White Way comes into your living room via this disc of rare performances from some of Broadway's brightest luminaries. Culled from clips fro...
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The Best of The Tony Awards: The Plays
2001
The Rising Place
6/1
The close friendship of two young women, each of a different race, and their struggle to find purpose in their lives during this time of social injust...
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The Rising Place
2008
Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun
8/1
Zora Neale Hurston, path-breaking novelist, pioneering anthropologist and one of the first black women to enter the American literary canon (Their Eye...
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Zora Neale Hurston: Jump at the Sun
2020
Blood Sugar Rising
0/0
Blood Sugar Rising follows the diabetes epidemic in the U.S. Diabetes and pre-diabetes affect over 100 million people in the US, costing more than $32...
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Blood Sugar Rising
2010
We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918
6.5/2
We meet individuals from marginalized communities who describe what it was like to live through the 1918 flu pandemic. Their experiences raise questio...
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We Heard the Bells: The Influenza of 1918
2014
Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee
1.5/1
In this open-letter style documentary, Ruby Dee & Ossie Davis' rich lives guide their grandson on his personal quest to master lasting love, conscious...
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Life's Essentials with Ruby Dee
1990
Navy Seals
5.326/224
During a rescue mission, a team of Navy Seals discover that a terrorist group have access to deadly US built Stinger missiles, and must set out to loc...
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Navy Seals
1988
Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special
7.417/36
Pee-wee Herman and pals are celebrating Christmas in the Playhouse in their own creative ways: Pee-wee makes a list for Santa Claus 1 1/2 miles long,...
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Pee-wee's Playhouse Christmas Special
2020
Barbecue
0/0
The O’Mallerys have gathered in their local park to share some barbecue and rousing straight talk while they await their youngest sister’s arrival. Wh...
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Barbecue
1999
Paul Robeson: Here I Stand
0/0
Paul Robeson: Here I Stand presents the life and achievements of an extraordinary man. Athlete, singer, and scholar, Robeson was also a charismatic ch...
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Paul Robeson: Here I Stand
2020
The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America
10/2
An all-star livestream benefit performance of scenes from Angels in America in support of amfAR’s Fund to Fight COVID-19.
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The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels in America
2004
Jersey Girl
6.173/998
Ollie Trinke is a young, suave music publicist who seems to have it all, with a new wife and a baby on the way. But life deals him a bum hand when he'...
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Jersey Girl
Desmond's Not Here Anymore
0/0
Abigail battles moving her elderly mother with dementia out from the family home. When her mother unconsciously haunts her by continually questioning...
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Desmond's Not Here Anymore
2012
Lincoln
6.9/3662
The revealing story of the 16th US President's tumultuous final months in office. In a nation divided by war and the strong winds of change, Lincoln p...
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Lincoln
1990
Moe's World
0/0
The spirit of a deceased 11-year-old boy acts as the guardian of his family and friends in the working-class neighborhood he left behind.
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Moe's World
2024
We Grown Now
7.5/2
Best friends Malik and Eric discover the joys and hardships of growing up in the sprawling Cabrini-Green public housing complex in 1992 Chicago.
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We Grown Now
1993
It's Nothing Personal
0/0
An embittered ex-cop, on a quest for justice, teams up with a hard-boiled bounty hunter to go after the suspected killer of her brother in a robbery.
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It's Nothing Personal
Somewhere in Dreamland
0/0
Anna grieves the death of her parents as she moves from New York to Florida to stay with her grandmother. She falls in with some other teens, but when...
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Somewhere in Dreamland
1998
Exiled
5.2/12
NYPD Detective Mike Logan, who was reassigned to Staten Island after punching a corrupt politician, takes on a grisly murder case. When the investigat...
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