Leslie Lewis Sword: woman of many talents

Jet, May 16, 2005

Leslie Lewis Sword is a visionary. By the age of 6, she was already performing on TV alongside Big Bird on "Sesame Street."

Today, she's still making waves in entertainment. Now it is as an actress, writer and producer. She recently ended her New York theatre debut performance in the Off Broadway production of Yesterday Came Too Soon: The Dorothy Dandridge Story.

The one-woman show, performed at Harlem's historic National Black Theatre, was set at a Las Vegas performance in 1965; it would be Dandridge's final engagement before she died that year. In 1954, Dandridge became the first Black woman to receive an Oscar nomination in the Best Actress category.

"They went on faith," she says of the role, which took nearly two years to cast. "I'm a fresh face and they took a chance on me."

The part came shortly after earning an MFA in acting from UCLA. "I spent three years in graduate school getting training because winging it is not a good idea," explains Leslie, who also graduated with honors from Harvard.

Two years ago she co-starred with Billy Zane of Titanic movie fame in the short film Starving Hysterical Naked, a biopic about the Beat Generation writers.

Currently Leslie is working on the indie flick Taboo: The Controversy of Black/White 'Race Mixing' in America with director Abiola Abrams. The hybrid documentary, which she is also executive producing, takes a look at interracial love. Another collaboration with Abrams includes Fetish In Wonderland, a movie about women reclaiming their sexual power.

In 1998 she made her literary debut with the book, Waiter, There's A Fly In My Soup: How To Make Megabucks Waiting Tables, "It's what every actor should know," says the former waitress. This year she also penned a book of poetry, Naked Heart.

Leslie is the daughter of Reginald Lewis, the late business tycoon, and Loida Nicolas Lewis, national chair of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations.

Concludes Leslie, "I feel like God is the essence of whatever is good in my life ... I've been blessed."