3:50PM, Jan 22, 2009
Born: September 11 1970
Where: Washington DC, USA
The actress almost settled on a career as an electrical engineer before opting for a life in film.
She has since received critical plaudits for her role as Queenie in the drama The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
Born Taraji Penda Henson - the daughter of a manager and caretaker - her first name is the Arabic for hope while her middle name means love in Swahili.
She attended Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland, and went on to study electrical engineering at North Carolina Agric and Tech College.
Failing her course, she transferred to Howard University where she worked as a secretary at the Pentagon and a singing and dancing waitress on a cruise ship to pay her fees.
She graduated with a degree in theatre arts and made her small screen debut in 1994 in the family comedy Sister, Sister.
Her firs feature appearance was in the low-budget action film Streetwise and she went on to make TV appearances in ER and The Smart Guy.
In 2000, she starred alongside Shannen Doherty in the TV drama Satan's School For Girls and also appeared in the animation adventure The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.
She received critical approval for the role of Yvette in John Singleton's Baby Boy in 2001 and went on to play Shug in Hustle & Flow.
(Henson made her singing debut when she provided the vocals for the Three 6 Mafia track It's Hard Out Here for a Pimp - the song won an Academy Award for Best Original Song in 2006.)
In 2005, Singleton cast her alongside Mark Wahlberg and Tyrese Gibson in the drama Four Brothers and she also appeared as a foxy assassin in the shoot 'em up Smokin' Aces.
Recent work includes TV's Boston Legal and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.
