Tamara Tunie

Tamara Tunie (born March 14, 1959) is an American film, stage, and television actress, director, and producer. She is best known for her roles as attorney Jessica Griffin on the CBS soap opera As the World Turns (1987–1995, 2000–2007, 2009) and as medical examiner Melinda Warner in the NBC police drama Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2000–2021). Tunie also appeared in films such as Rising Sun (1993), The Devil's Advocate (1997), The Caveman's Valentine (2001) receiving Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female nomination, Flight (2012), and Whitney Houston: I Wanna Dance with Somebody (2022). Early life A native of Homestead, Pennsylvania, she was the fourth of six children raised in the family-run funeral home by parents James W. Tunie and Evelyn Hawkins Tunie. She sang in her church choir, was in the high school band, took dance lessons and was an honor student in the steel-mill town. “I like to say, those of us from Pittsburgh, particularly from the Steel Valley area, were forged by the fire, and I think it makes us very strong and very resilient and prepared us to launch into the world and into life,” she told Pittsburgh Magazine. She earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre from Carnegie-Mellon University in 1981. She was elected to the university's board of trustees in 2020. Career Tunie made her Broadway debut alongside Lena Horne in Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music in 1981. From 1987 to 1995, she starred in the CBS daytime soap opera As the World Turns playing attorney Jessica Griffin. She reprised the role from 2000 to 2007, receiving NAACP Image Awards nominations for Outstanding Actress in a Daytime Drama Series in 2003 and 2004. In the 1990s Tunie guest-starred in primetime dramas including Swift Justice, Law & Order, Chicago Hope, New York Undercover and Sex and the City. She also had a recurring role as Lillian Fancy in the ABC police drama NYPD Blue from 1994 to 1997.