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Vanessa Baden

American actress, writer, director, and producer

Summary

American actress, writer, director, and producer

Field	Value
name	Vanessa Baden-Kelly
birth_name	Vanessa Jennifer Baden
birth_date
birth_place	Manhattan Beach, California, U.S.
occupation	Actress, writer, director, producer
spouse
children	1
yearsactive	1994–present

Vanessa Jennifer Baden-Kelly (; born September 8, 1985) is an American actress, writer, director, and producer. She is best known as a child actress in the Nickelodeon television series Gullah Gullah Island (1994–1998) and Kenan & Kel (1996–2000). In 2017, she starred, co-wrote and co-produced the web series Giants, executive produced by Issa Rae. In 2019, she won a Daytime Emmy Award for her performance in Giants.

She was the executive story editor and writer for season 1 of The Sex Lives of College Girls.

Early life

Baden was born in Manhattan Beach, California, and raised in Satellite Beach, Florida, where she got her start as a model in print ads.

In 2004, she won the Florida District Miss Black and Gold Pageant, representing the Iota Delta chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity at a regional competition in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida in December 2007 with a degree in sociology.

Career

Baden began her career as a child actress on television; her first major role was as Vanessa in the Nick Jr. television series Gullah Gullah Island. Following this, she portrayed Kyra Rockmore for more than 60 episodes of the teen sitcom Kenan & Kel, which also aired on Nickelodeon.

In 1997, she played a supporting role in the film Rosewood and served as a panelist on the children's game show Figure It Out. This was followed by a year-long hiatus from acting.

In 2011, Baden returned to the screen as Hope in the YouTube comedy series Fail, opposite King Bach. In 2012, she starred as Erin Mult in the television film Chris & Todd. In 2014, she played opposite Jenifer Lewis in the comedy feature film Secrets of the Magic City, directed by R. Malcolm Jones.

Since 2017, she has starred, co-written, and co-produced the web series Giants, which streams on Issa Rae's YouTube channel. She plays Journee in the series. Her performance in Giants garnered her a Daytime Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in 2018, and a win in 2019.

Baden also works as a writer and producer; she co-wrote and co-produced several episodes of Giants, and has also written for The Huffington Post.

In May 2021, Baden's essay collection, Far Away from Close to Home: A Black Millennial Woman in Progress will be published by Three Rooms Press.

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1994–1995	My Brother and Me	Janey	TV series; 3 episodes
1994–1998	Gullah Gullah Island	Vanessa	TV series; 50 episodes
1996–2000	Kenan & Kel	Kyra Rockmore	TV series; 27 episodes
1997	Rosewood	Lee-Ruth
1997	Figure It Out	Herself / Panelist	TV series
2011–2012	Fail	Hope	TV series; 6 episodes
2012	Franchise	Cameo	Short film
2013	Chris & Todd	Erin Mult	TV film
2014	Secrets of the Magic City	Tracey
2017–2018	Giants	Journee	Web series; 13 episodes; also writer and producer
2019	Soap Central	Interviewee	TV series

References

(February 26, 2018). "Vanessa Baden Kelly of 'Giants' on Millennials Leading the Mental Health Conversation". Rebellious Magazine.
(May 6, 2019). "Giants Cleans Up at Daytime Emmys, Takes Home Outstanding Lead Actress and Outstanding Supporting Actor".
"The Sex Lives of College Girls (TV Series 2021– )". IMDb.
"THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS & SCIENCES ANNOUNCES NOMINATIONS FOR THE 45th ANNUAL DAYTIME EMMY® AWARDS {{!}} The Emmy Awards - The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences".
Kelly, Vanessa Baden. (September 26, 2015). "Why I Support Michael B. Jordan and Not Internet Hype".
(May 4, 2021). "Home is the Mouth of a Shark: Essays". Three Rooms Press.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

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