On June 29th, 1988, the romantic comedy Coming to America was released. It was Eddie Murphy’s first film in which he played multiple characters, (the main role of Prince Akeem, along with three other characters: Clarence, Saul, and Randy Watson.) The film also starred Arsenio Hall in four roles, including Semmi, Akeem’s right-hand man. James Earl Jones played Akeem’s father, King Jaffe Joffer, and Madge Sinclar as Akeem’s mother, Queen Aoleon. On March 5th, 2021, Amazon Prime will release the sequel, Coming 2 America with each of these actors reprising their respective roles from the original, along with the rest of the film’s supporting cast, including Shari Headley and John Amos. Madge Sinclair, however, will not appear in the sequel because she sadly is deceased. Today we will explore her career, including her voice work for one of Disney’s most beloved animated movies.
Madge Sinclair was born in Kingston, Jamaica on April 28th, 1938. She began her career as a teacher after she studied at the Shortwood College for Women. She married a Jamaican police officer, Royston Sinclair, and had two sons with him, Garry and Wayne, but they divorced when she decided to move to New York to pursue acting. She was fortunate enough to find success performing at the New York Shakespearean Festival and she got a job as a model. Her modeling skills ultimately caught the attention of a talent agent who encouraged her to tryout for Joseph Rapp’s Public Theatre. She worked for this theatre company for the next three years, and it wasn’t long before television came knocking at her door.
In 1972, she appeared in the short film The Witches of Salem: The Horror and the Hope and in an episode of the crime drama Madigan (1972-1973). In 1974, she starred in the film Conrack alongside Jon Voight and Paul Winfield, a film known for it’s message of racial unity and understanding. Her role as Mrs. Scott in that film earned her a NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) Award for Outstanding Actress in a Motion Picture. In 1975, she starred in a television remake of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner. In this film, Sinclair was directed by Stanley Kramer, who had also directed the original 1967 theatrical version with Sidney Poitier, Spencer and Katherine Hepburn. In 1977, she appeared as Bell Reynolds, wife of Kunta Kinte, played by John Amos in the miniseries Roots, which co-starred LeVar Burton as the young Kunta Kinte. Sinclair worked with Burton four other times, each time playing his mother, the first of which was the film Almos’ a Man which was released in 1976.
The 1980s earned Sinclair iconic status when she was cast in the CBS medical drama Trapper John M.D. (1979-1986) in the role of Nurse Ernestine Shoop, a role that earned her three Primetime Emmy Nominations. She made an uncredited appearance as the Saratoga Captain in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986). During her run of “Trapper John M.D.,” Sinclair was diagnosed with leukemia, but for the time being, managed to pull through. She reunited with John Amos and had her first pairing with James Earl Jones when they were all cast in the original “Coming to America.” Sinclair and Jones reunited when they were both cast on the drama series Gabriel’s Fire (1990-1991), and Sinclair’s role as Empress Josephine finally won her a Primetime Emmy. They teamed up a third time when they were cast as regulars in the action drama series, Pros and Cons (1991-1992), and they appeared in separate episodes of L.A. Law (1986-1994) as well. (Sinclair reunited with LeVar Burton, again playing his mother in the “Interface” episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987-1994)).
Soon, Walt Disney Animation Studios gave a green light to The Lion King (1994) and were looking for actors to provide the voices of Mufasa and Sarabi, the King and Queen Lion parents of Simba, the future King. At the time, they had considered the likes of Timothy Dalton and Liam Neeson for Mufasa and Vanessa Redgrave, Virginia McKenna, and Helen Mirren for Sarabi, but finally, they decided to re-team Jones and Sinclair. The voice-over role of Queen Sarabi would be Madge Sinclair’s last film role, because the following year, her leukemia tragically took her life on December 20th, 1995. She was survived by her sons, and her second husband, actor Dean Crompton. That same year, she was awarded the Order of Distinction, Rank of Commander by the Prime Minister of Jamaica.
Madge Sinclair was a talent worthy of more attention by people. She earned fame for playing Ernestine Shoop in “Trapper John,” and for playing LeVar Burton’s mother, but what made her legendary was playing James Earl Jones’s queen twice, in both human and “lion” form. It’s sad that we will not see her in “Coming 2 America,” but had it not been for her wonderful acting talents, “The Lion King,” and the original “Coming to America,” would not have been as special as they were to all of “us fans.”
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