Angela Bassett was born on August 16, 1958, in New York City. She relocated to St. Petersburg, Florida as a child, with her single mom Betty, a social worker, and her sister D'nette. In 1974, after seeing James Earl Jones in a production of Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men while on a high school trip, Bassett first contemplated acting as a career.

An exceptional student, she was encouraged by one of her teachers to apply for a university grant. She won a scholarship from Yale, where she would spend the better part of four years earning a B.A. in African-American studies before going on to receive a Master of Fine Arts Degree from the Yale School of Drama in 1983.

Bassett found employment at the Hartford Stage Company prior to a move to New York in 1985. There, she made her debut on Broadway in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom before making her film debut in the 1985 made-for-TV movie Doubletake.

In 1986, she landed her first feature film role in cult favorite F/X. She kept busy with television work through the remainder of the '80s, landing parts in made-for-TV movies like Liberty (1986) and guest roles on A Man Called Hawk, Tour of Duty, 227, and

In 1988, she returned to the Broadway stage in Joe Turner's Come and Gone, just prior to relocating to Los