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Actor

1954-03-05 · Chicago, Illinois, United States · Female

20 series in the catalog

Marsha Francine Warfield (born March 5, 1954) is an American actress and comedian. She grew up on Chicago's South Side, graduating from Calumet High School. She is best known for playing tough, no-nonsense bailiff Roz Russell on the NBC sitcom Night Court from 1986 to 1992, reprising the role on a guest basis for its 2023 revival. Warfield also starred in the sitcom Empty Nest as Dr. Maxine Douglas (1993–1995). Before Night Court, she was a writer and performer on the short-lived Richard Pryor Show.

Warfield appeared in feature films such as D.C. Cab (1983) and Mask (1985), hosted The Marsha Warfield Show for ten months (March 1990–January 1991) and has made guest appearances on many television shows, including Riptide, Family Ties, Clueless, Cheers, Living Single, In Living Color, Cybill, Moesha, Smart Guy, and Touched by an Angel. Her early stand-up comedy career is profiled alongside those of Rhonda Hansome, Alice Arthur, and Jane Galvin Lewis in the 1984 documentary I Be Done Been Was Is by director Debra J. Robinson. As of 2024 she has a recurring role on 9-1-1 as the mother of main character paramedic and firefighter Henrietta "Hen" Wilson, played by Aisha Hinds.

She has also done stand-up comedy including appearances on the Norm Crosby hosted The Comedy Shop television series. She won the San Francisco International Comedy Competition in 1979, over such competition as Dana Carvey and A. Whitney Brown.

Personal life

In 2017, Warfield publicly came out stating:

When I told my mother I was gay, she said she knew, and had known all my life.

Then, she asked me not to come out publicly while she was alive.

I agreed, even though the request and her admission were hurtful in ways I couldn't put my finger on then, and probably haven't completely worked through it now, but, everybody who knew me, knew I was gay.

The people I didn't tell knew anyway, and tacitly agreed to pretend that the unacknowledged had been acknowledged and accepted.

Like I'm sure is true for millions of other glass door closeted people.

When I went to bars, which was frequently, I never tried to hide who I was, so, it was an open secret.

Had I never come out publicly, many, many people would have known.

It would not then have ever really been a betrayal of trust to "spill the beans" because it wasn't a secret, it was an uncomfortably kept promise to my mother, but, it was also not the only reason I didn't come out swinging when she passed.

The fear of the judgment of strangers and their holier-than-thou "shoulds" was at least as big of a burden to bear, but the "shoulds" that "should" matter, don't.

Nobody should have to hide their sexuality.

No parent should ask their child to.

There should be no shame in being gay.

Warfield's Night Court character, Roz, was portrayed as gay and marrying another woman in the 2023 revival, something Warfield says could not have happened at the time of the original show.

Warfield is married to Angie Maldonado.