This stunningly beautiful, rising black actress first began her acting career as a teenager, appearing in several stage productions, including “227″, which was the basis for the NBC sitcom of the same name on which she made a guest appearance. She landed a role in “The B.R.A.T. Patrol” (ABC, 1986), a “Disney Sunday Movie” and appearances in music videos before breaking onto the big screen in “Buried Alive” (1990). In John Singleton’s acclaimed “Boyz N the Hood” (1991), Long played the marriage-minded girlfriend of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Tre. Her three-year stint (1991-1994) as Kathryn ‘Kat’ Speakes on the CBS daytime drama “Guiding Light” garnered her attention and Long used the experience as a springboard to primetime and higher profile features. While still on the soap, she landed the role of Whoopi Goldberg’s daughter in the uneven comedy “Made in America”. Long fared slightly better the following year when she joined the cast of the hit NBC sitcom “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air”, playing the recurring role of Will’s girlfriend, but when the series returned for its final season, her role had been dropped.
