This Little Girl Became A Household Name In The 90’s & Dated A Popular 90s Star
The cutie pie being held by her mother in the photo, is an actress who brought laughter to our lives back in the day. She starred on a major sitcom in the late 80’s and early 90’s and ultimately became one of the most recognizable faces of that era. At that time, signature natural curls were as identifiable as her TV character. Think you figured out who she is? Scroll down to see if your guess is on point…
Who’s That Girl?
She is the one one and only Cree Summer! Y’all remember Cree, right? She played “Freddie,” the somewhat ditsy college student in the “Different World” sitcom, alongside her comical co-stars. Speaking of her co-stars, Freddie had a close connection to a few of them that runs deep to this day…
Cree’s Close Relationships With Co-Stars Runs Deep
Actress, Lisa Bonet (“Denise Huxtable”) has been Cree’s best friend for decades. Cree is also reportedly the godmother of Lisa’s and ex-husband/rock star, Lenny Kravitz’s, daughter, Zoe Kravitz.
Cree and former co-star, Kadeem Hardison (“Dwyane-Wayne”), were in a serious relationship for several years as well. They dated during the time of the show in the 90’s, which was a surprise to most “Different World” fans. Cree is now married with two adorable young kids and Kadeem has been married, divorced, and now in a serious relationship with his longtime girlfriend. Despite that, the two former lovebirds have remained really cool friends to this day. Matter of fact, they’re like homies and Cree even recently posted this fun shot of ’em on Instagram:
What Cree Summer Does For A Living Now
Cree Summer may not have been in the public’s eye for the past decade or so, but her voice most definitely has! Summer voiced over 100 animated characters between 1983 and 2006 for video games, cartoon TV series, animated films and commercials and she’s still going. She’s done everything from Inspector Gadget, to the Transformers Animated. Cree’s also singer and continues to record her music (you can see video of that on the next pages). I’m getting exhausted just reading all the work she’s done, but the woman has been gettin’ paid with her unique whiny voice for a long while.
About Cree Summer’s Parents
Cree Summer stems from a pretty artistic and eclectic family. Both of her parents (pictured above with young Cree) were artistic people in the entertainment genres. Her mother, Lili Clark was an African American dancer from San Francisco. Her father, Donald Harvey Francks, was a White famous actor and jazz musician from Canada, which is also where he had most of his success. Franks became really popular in the 1960’s in successful Canadian TV shows such as, Mission: Impossible, Jericho, The Man From U.N.C.L.E., The Wild Wild West, and Mannix, and many more.
Before Cree was born, Lili and Donald Francks decided to move to a Native American Reserve, called Red Pheasant, in Saskatchewan, Canada and got married. That’s also where they raised Cree and her brother.
To this day, Cree Summer practices the Native American culture that she was raised in, even though she is a biracial woman of African American and Caucasian decent. Do your thang Cree!
