Leslie Uggams is the proud mom of two children: Danielle and Justice.
The Roots star married her husband, Grahame Pratt, in 1965, and the couple welcomed their daughter, Danielle Chambers (née Pratt), five years later. Their son, Justice Pratt, followed in 1975.
Uggams first met Grahame, who later became her longtime manager, while she was on tour in Australia. In 2018, the actress described her husband to PEOPLE as "smart and witty and fearless."
When it comes to her children, the Deadpool & Wolverine star doesn’t often discuss her daughter or son in interviews, and her kids tend to stay out of the spotlight.
She occasionally features her family on social media, including sharing a photo of them from when she received an honorary doctorate of fine arts from the UConn School of Fine Arts in 2015.
Two years later, Uggams and her husband attended the dual premieres of Empire and Star with Danielle and Justice.
Here’s everything to know about Leslie Uggams’ children: Danielle and Justice.
Uggams and Grahame welcomed their first child together, daughter Danielle, on April 11, 1970.
Danielle was born in New York City but raised in California, attending Beverly Hills High School, according to her bio on her mom’s website. She relocated back to New York for college and attended New York University Tisch School of the Arts to study theater and film.
Danielle has been involved in the arts since she was 3 months old. As a child, she spent time backstage at the theater while her parents starred in Cabaret on the summer stock circuit. Danielle also watched her mom’s performances growing up, which further inspired her to follow in Uggams’ footsteps.
Early in her career, she performed in a production of Once on This Island in Little Rock, Ark., and produced and performed her own cabaret at Eighty-Eights.
Though she may have been surrounded by the arts, Uggams told the Hartford Courant in 2014 that Danielle didn’t tell her parents she wanted to be a singer until she was in her teens.
Uggams said being a stage mom wasn’t possible for her “because our daughter Danielle never let us know she wanted to sing until she was in college so we weren’t tested being stage parents.”
“We were just tested being parents,” the Fallout star added. “But our 3-year-old granddaughter loves -
to dance so maybe we can be stage grandparents.”
In her career, Danielle was a member of the first national tour of the Titanic musical and has been a member of several regional productions, including Into the Woods, Cinderella and Beehive. She also appeared on-screen in the soap opera One Life to Live in 2007 and 2008.
More recently, Uggams performed alongside her daughter during her cabaret show, Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue in March 2024. In it, the mother-daughter duo turned the tune “Put A Little Love in Your Heart” into a duet, per the New York Stage Review.
As for her personal life, Danielle wed Kevin Chambers on Nov. 27, 2002, and the couple are parents to one daughter, Kassidy. Danielle and Kevin met while she was working for Spirit Cruises and was a singer-waitress before joining the cruise band.
Uggams and Grahame welcomed their second child, son Justice, on July 28, 1975.
In a November 1988 interview with The Washington Post, when Justice was a teenager, Uggams told the publication that her son wanted “to be Eddie Murphy.”
Much like his parents and sister, Justice pursued a career as an actor, according to his bio on his mom’s website.
He attended the Professional Children's School in N.Y.C. before studying at the Conservatory of Theatre Arts at the State University of New York at Purchase. Justice also attended acting classes at HB Studio with Austin Pendleton.
During his time at SUNY Purchase, he appeared in several theater productions, including Finding the Sun, Love's Labour's Lost and Idiot's Delight. Justice also starred in commercials as well as television and film, like The Ernest Green Story.
Outside of his work as an actor, Justice has pursued a career in hospitality. According to his LinkedIn, he has worked as a concierge, a mixologist and an event operations manager. He also received his real estate license in N.Y.C. and worked as an agent for several years.
Today, he's a freelance director and producer for Mama Bear Media Group.
Justice has attended several big moments in his mom’s career, including her induction into the Theater Hall of Fame in November 2021, where he snapped several photos of Uggams.
Related Articles
Follow Us