TV Savior Shonda Rhimes talks Halle, Britney & Raven Symone
Quote:
"I credit my early success in part to mentors like Debra Martin Chase, a prominent African-American producer, who hired me as an intern at Denzel Washington's Mundy Lane when Rhimes was in film school."
"When Chase hired me to write The Princess Diaries 2 years later, one of the first decisions we made was to add a black princess (Raven-Symone) to the cast."
In those early years, I also wrote the HBO biopic Introducing Dorothy Dandridge, which earned star Halle Berry a Golden Globe, and a Britney Spears dramedy, "Crossroads" which earned Rhimes her house. (A Crossroads movie poster hangs in the Shondaland offices.) But her life, like that of many others, changed on 9/11.
