L. Scott Caldwell Bio
L. Scott Caldwell, born Laverne Scott in 1950, is an American actress whose career spans stage, film, and television. She is widely recognized for her portrayal of Deputy U.S. Marshal Erin Poole in The Fugitive (1993) and for playing Rose on the television series Lost. Over more than five decades, Caldwell has built a versatile resume through Broadway productions, regional theatre, network dramas, and advocacy work for performers of color.
After beginning her professional life in Chicago, she joined the Negro Ensemble Company in New York and later transitioned to screen work in Southern California. She continues to perform, lecture, and serve on industry panels.
Early Life and Background
Laverne Scott was born in 1950 in Chicago, Illinois, and raised in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the city’s South Side. She was the middle child in a working-class family and attended a high-enrollment elementary school, where she was released at noon and escorted to a neighborhood theater overseen by a friend of her mother. Those early afternoons spent watching films nurtured a lifelong fascination with storytelling and performance.
While attending Hyde Park High School in Chicago, she joined the drama club and saw a production of A Day of Absence featuring Douglas Turner Ward, a co-founder of The Negro Ensemble Company. The experience was her first encounter with professional Black actors on a stage and shaped her ambitions. After graduating high school in 1967, she enrolled at Northwestern University.
She left Northwestern after one year to work full-time as an operator at Illinois Bell. She later transferred her credits to Loyola University Chicago, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts in Theater Arts and Communications.
Path to Acting
Caldwell originally planned a teaching career and taught at the Chicago High School of the Performing Arts. She also spent a year with the Chicago Council on Fine Arts as an artist-in-residence. During these years she performed in local productions at the Body Politic, Court Theater, and Eleventh Street Theater, sharpening her craft across Chicago’s vibrant stage scene.
In 1978 she traveled to New York to audition for Uta Hagen’s HB Studio. While waiting, she noticed an advertisement for The Negro Ensemble Company and rode the subway to its offices. She was initially turned away but insisted on meeting Douglas Turner Ward, performing the audition pieces she had prepared for Hagen. She was accepted by both programs and chose the Negro Ensemble Company, launching her professional theatre career.
L. Scott Caldwell Career
Early Career (1974-1985)
During her first season with the Negro Ensemble Company, Caldwell appeared in several plays, including Samm Art Williams’ Home, which transferred to Broadway’s Cort Theatre in 1980. The production was critically acclaimed and earned a Tony Award nomination for Charles Brown. After Home closed, she performed in regional productions including Boesman and Lena at Milwaukee Repertory Theatre and A Raisin in the Sun at Studio Arena Theatre in Buffalo, New York.
In December 1984, while working in A Play of Giants, she was struck by a car while hailing a cab on Columbus Avenue in New York. The severe back injury kept her out of work for nearly two years.
Breakthrough (1986-2010)
Her first audition after recovery was for August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Her performance as Bertha Holly earned her a 1988 Tony Award. Soon after winning the Tony, she relocated to Southern California to pursue television and film work. She went on to appear in The Fugitive (1993) as Deputy U.S. Marshal Erin Poole and later joined the cast of the ABC drama Lost as Rose, roles that introduced her to wide international audiences.
She returned to Broadway in 1997 as the lead in Neil Simon’s short-lived Proposals. She later performed the role of Leah in New York City Center’s Encores! Great American Musicals in Concert production of St. Louis Woman. In 2006, she made her Goodman Theatre debut in Regina Taylor’s The Dreams of Sarah Breedlove, and in 2011 she played Lena Younger in the Ebony Repertory Theatre production of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Phylicia Rashad. For that performance she won the 2011 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award and shared a 2011 LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award nomination with the cast.
Beyond acting, Caldwell has been active in union service. She won seats on the Screen Actors Guild national board of directors and the Hollywood division board in 2008, 2009, and 2010, eventually securing a three-year term in 2011 and serving as national chair of the Women’s Committee.
Notable Works and Milestones
Caldwell’s signature screen credits include The Fugitive (1993) and Lost, while her most celebrated stage moment remains her Tony Award-winning turn as Bertha Holly in Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. Her career reflects a steady bridge between Broadway’s African American dramatic canon and mainstream Hollywood productions.
L. Scott Caldwell Award Nominations
L. Scott Caldwell has received nominations from respected theatre and industry organizations throughout her career, reflecting recognition from peers for both her stage and screen performances. Her cast of A Raisin in the Sun at the Ebony Repertory Theatre earned an LA Stage Alliance Ovation Award nomination in 2011, and her Broadway debut in Home contributed to a Tony Award-nominated production.
L. Scott Caldwell Awards Won
Among her most prized honors is the 1988 Tony Award for her performance as Bertha Holly in August Wilson’s Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, a defining achievement in her theatre career. She also received the 2011 Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award for her portrayal of Lena Younger in the Ebony Repertory Theatre production of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Phylicia Rashad.
L. Scott Caldwell Family
Caldwell grew up as the middle child in a working-class family in Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Her early exposure to theater and the influence of a high school drama club helped shape her professional path, and a transformative performance by Douglas Turner Ward inspired her pursuit of acting.
Personal Life
In her early twenties, Laverne Scott married John Caldwell and had a son named Ominara. The marriage ended in divorce in the early 1980s. She married again on her birthday in 2004 to artist, photographer, and director Dasal Banks. Banks suffered from cancer and died in May 2005. Caldwell later completed his final documentary, My Brothers and Me, which was created to raise awareness about prostate cancer among Black men.