I'm the female Simon Cowell. He said I'm the scariest woman he's ever met. I asked him why he never dated me, and he said I was too intimidating.

People identify with me - everyone does - African American women, Caucasian women, they all identify with me because I'm ethnic.

The past explains how I got here, but the future is up to me - and I love to live life at full throttle.

My first job was for a blue jean company as a sitting model. I posed for 15 minutes and made $50. It was 1976.

The only exercise I got as a kid was fork to mouth. Food was equated with love in my household. I thought you left the table when the zipper was down and you'd explode if you took another bite. I'd eat my plate and then everyone else's leftovers.

We are particularly interested in the mental health programs and policies that support our troops and their families before, during, and after deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan.

I grew up dancing, and for a while in college, I was a gym rat. I finally realized... I'm going to create a little more balance in my life and make exercise something that I enjoy doing. So I went back to dance when I started doing more musical theatre, and I've just found that it's the best thing that works for my body.

If our society continues to support basic research on how living organisms function, it is likely that my great grandchildren will be spared the agony of losing family members to most types of cancer.