Anne-Marie Johnson

Anne-Marie Johnson began her career as an actress on the short-lived sitcom "Double Trouble" in 1984. She quickly moved on to star in the similarly short-lived sequel to the sitcom "What's Happening!": "What's Happening Now!." Some memorable but minor film work followed in Keenen Ivory Wayans's blaxploitation parody "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" and Robert Townsend's showbiz comedy "Hollywood Shuffle," among other features. But the biggest success of her earlier career came afterwards, when she portrayed Althea Tibbs, the wife of Detective Virgil Tibbs, on the hit police drama "In the Heat of the Night" from 1988 to 1993. After "In the Heat of the Night" Johnson moved on to do one season of Wayans's sketch-comedy series "In Living Color" and the classic late-'90s evening soap "Melrose Place." Into the 2000s she landed one-off roles in notable series such as the screwball legal drama "Ally McBeal" and the conspiracy theory-ridden "The X-Files." Perhaps the most notable moment in Johnson's later career came when she was elected the First Vice President of the Screen Actors Guild in 2005.