Vanessa Williams plays Wilhelmina Slater in the ABC comedy series "Ugly Betty", but Williams is anything but ugly.

Her career started when she became America's first Miss America of African descent in 1984. She was forced to resign her title ten months later due to risqué photographs that were shot before she became Miss America. Williams then took some time out of the spotlight and reemerged in 1988 when she secured a record deal and released her debut album, The Right Stuff. The album reached gold status in the US and earned her three Grammy Award nominations, including one for best new artist and she has since received many more Grammy nods with several other albums.

Along with her singing career she has had a successful career as an actress and has received many nominations, including a Tony, Screen Actors Guild Awards and an Emmy award.

Now embracing her inner villain in "Ugly Betty", which got her the Emmy nomination, Williams proves how multi-talented she is. "Ugly Betty" is centered around Betty Suarez (played by America Ferrera) a young woman who has always had one goal in life: to make it into the publishing business. Despite being smart, hard working and productive, her dream has always been shadowed by the fact that she isn't the best looking young woman but gets a job as an assistant at MODE magazine. Williams plays her competition, the creative director who wants the editorin- chief position at the magazine. Wilhelmina is a conceited, self-absorbed diva and former fashion model who lives for two things: MODE and Botox. She held the position of Creative Director of MODE magazine and was promised the position of editor-in-chief by her former boss, but she was passed over.

That's not all. She may play a villain on TV, but in real life she's proven to be anything but evil. Williams' charitable contributions are many and varied, embracing and supporting such issues as education, homelessness, abuse, women's issues and health issues such as the NCCRA (National Colorectal Cancer Research Alliance), AIDS and anything having to do with children. Specifically, she is actively involved with such organizations as Green Chimneys, a working farm in Westchester County that provides educational and residential programs to help troubled inner-city adolescents; The Open Door, which provides walkin medical care for homeless families; The Cottage School for displaced young women and the Special Olympics, among many others.