Mention Terri Vaughn’s name, and images of the tight-bodied beauty with the high-pitched voice on the “Steve Harvey Show” begin dancing in your mind.
The real Vaughn is radically different from Lavita, the vivacious vixen in the form-fitting dresses whose saucy personality spiced things up on the popular sitcom. Vaughn is a serious, self-contained, culturally conscious woman with deep spiritual sensibilities. The former Miss Black California beauty queen contestant credits her Maker for steering her from the turbulent terrain of San Francisco to the palm trees and manicured streets of North Hollywood.
“I really feel like this journey is a journey that I did not pave out myself. It was journey that was paved out for me by God. Because I didn’t ask to be in it — it just kind of unfolded and [was] brought to me,” says the married mother of two. “So when times do get rough and get hard [I’m like], ‘God, I didn’t ask to be here, so I know You have me going through this for a reason’ … and it always works out.”
Vaughn produced the documentary “Angels Can’t Help But Laugh,” and has starred in such theatrical vehicles as Daddy’s Little Girls, Dirty Laundry and Sister Act 2. Though she enjoys films, Vaughn prefers the small screen; a place where she says she was divinely placed to impact lives. “It just holds more power and I believe that God put me in this position so that I would have something to say. So I have to be careful about what I say and what I do,” she says.
Besides her family and her career, nothing makes the 38-year-old happier than working through her Take Wings Foundation to raise girls’ self esteem.
“Oh, my God. … They have these walls up because [of] things they have gone through or are going through. And then they realize they can touch me, talk to me, call me. It just changes their whole attitude — it’s great — it’s beautiful,” says Vaughn. –terry shropshire
