Marissa Jaret Winokur

Marissa Jaret Winokur is an actress, singer, and dancer best known for her Tony-winning performance as Tracy Turnblad in the Broadway musical Hairspray, as well as her work on the Pamela Anderson sitcom Stacked.

The daughter of an architect, raised with three siblings in Bedford Village, NY, Winokur first revealed a passion for entertaining when she caught a Connecticut regional production of Meet Me in St. Louis at age eight, subsequently memorized the entire show, and later declared Ethel Merman as one of her chief role models. Winokur attended Manhattan's prestigious American Musical and Dramatic Academy, then joined the touring company of Grease (performing as Pink Lady Jan).

Scattered bit parts in movies followed, including Never Been Kissed (1999), American Beauty (1999), and Scary Movie (2000). Hairspray, however, represented Winokur's big breakthrough when it premiered in the late summer of 2002. Winokur won the 2003 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical, Drama Desk Award, Theatre World Award, and Outer Critics Circle Award for her performance.

During the early development stages of Hairspray, Winokur was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She underwent treatment for the disease, without revealing her condition to anyone except her immediate family out of fear that she would be replaced in the musical. Ultimately she made a full recovery and remained in the show.

Winokur followed Hairspray with an upsurge in television activity -- first with a part as a coffee-counter employee on the short-lived Pamela Anderson sitcom Stacked (2005-2006), then as a contestant on season six of the reality series Dancing With the Stars. She later went on to host the similar Dance Your Ass Off.

From 2010-2011 she served as a co-host on the daily daytime talk show The Talk, ultimately leaving to focus on her clothing line and a new cable TV show, All About Sex. In 2018, Winokur participated in the first U.S. season of Celebrity Big Brother, where she was crowned the winner.