(Photo: United Artists/Getty Images)

Madge Sinclair was way past the ingénue stage when she began her acting career in the early 1970s. Born Madge Dorita Walters on April 28, 1938, in Kingston, Jamaica, she was married with children and years of teaching experience when she left the Caribbean island to seek fame and fortune in the United States.

When Sinclair first arrived in New York, she worked various jobs to support herself. She also did some modeling and one of those jobs led to a meeting with theatrical director and producer Joseph Papp, who employed her for three years at the famed Papp Public Theater.

In addition to building a foundation for her acting career, she met her future second husband, production stage manager Dean Compton. Her two sons joined her in the U.S. when they were teenagers.

Sinclair made her television debut in 1972 in the television series Madigan, and first appeared on film in the movie Conrack in 1974. She appeared in Coming to America, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, The Lion King, Trapper John, M.D., Roots, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roseanne and several other films and television series.

Not long after finishing the television special A Century of Women, Sinclair died of leukemia on Dec. 20, 1995.

Follow Joyce Jones on Twitter: @BETpolitichick.

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