Raven Symone’: Disney’s Top Diva
Born in the peachy city of Atlanta, Georgia, she moved to New York with her parents at a very young age. Before she could even spell the words, “show business,” she was well on her way when she signed to the Ford Modeling Agency.
She was sent from her agency to her first audition for a role in the 1990 film, Ghost Dad, starring legendary comedian Bill Cosby. Although too young for the part, Cosby saw the big talent in the little actress and invited her to read for his then hit sitcom, The Cosby Show. It was no surprise when the three-year old Raven-Symone’ was cast as the precocious and very adorable Olivia Kendall from 1989 to its finale in 1992.
Shortly after the Cosby show finale, Raven Symone’ darted out on a new adventure. In 1993, she became the youngest artist to sign to MCA records, where she released the first of many albums to come. Her first single, That’s What Little Girls are Made of was the first song written by rap artist Missy Elliott that appeared on television.
She returned to the small screen in 1995 where she costarred with comedian Mark Curry in Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper.
Raven-Symone’, still an adolescent, dazzled casting directors and landed a role with big-time performers, Ossie Davis, Danny Glover, Jasmine Guy and future Academy Award winner Halle Berry in the television mini-series, Queen.
Fortunately for this child star, her career did not stop there. Big Hollywood production companies had her number and they dialed it. Possibly, her biggest break at that time, she held her own in the remake of Dr. Doolittle and its sequel with raunchy turned family movie actor/comedian Eddie Murphy.
In 1999, Disney producers casted her in Zenon: Girl of the 21st Century and her outstanding acting performance left such a lasting impression on them, that they asked her to return to do a reading for their newest project titled, Absolutely Psychic. In pure Raven-Symone’ fashion, she wowed her audience. They were so impressed that they rewrote the premise and renamed it, That’s So Raven. Her show has become one of the highest rated shows on the Disney Channel.
When the show aired in 2002, she reportedly made $20K per episode and did so for the first two seasons. She rightfully received a raise in 2003 and now earns $35K an episode.
But she still may be getting shortchanged compared to the money that she has been able to rake in for Disney.
According to Newsweek, the That’s So Raven empire, which consists of CDs, DVDs, jewelry, clothes, books, bedding, video games, perfume and dolls, is trending to make approximately a whopping $400 million in gross sales by the end of this year!
Raven-Symone’ has also been able to lend her voice to the animated series, Kim Possible.
Alongside members of 3LW, Adrienne Bailon and Kiely Williams and actress Sabrina Bryan, she starred in Cheetah Girls, a television movie about a girl power engineered music group. She also starred in the sequel, which played on Disney this past summer.
During the span of her career, she has also made guest appearances on A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, My Wife & Kids, The Proud Family and Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child, where she played Goldilocks.
She even appeared on an episode of the image-crippling show, MTV’s Punkd. I won’t give all the details to the prank but she showed her true colors. It was nice to know that her celebrity status hadn’t deteriorated her warm spirit. Shame on you, Ashton!
Hollywood has proclaimed that skinny is the thing to be but Raven-Symone’ thinks otherwise. She has received a lot of negative feedback about her plus-size figure. Not the typical size of most celebrities, she states that she is proud of her curves and would not want to be anything less.
Now at the age of 20, her self-confidence and great business savvy has proven to make her an excellent role model but also one of the hottest young actresses around.
