Ricki Lake is an actress, producer, and television host. She made her film debut as Tracy Turnblad in Hairspray (1988) and went on to appear in Cry-Baby (1990), Serial Mom (1994), Cecil B. Demented (2000), and numerous other films. At the age of 24 she began hosting a talk show, Ricki Lake (1993–2004), becoming the youngest person at the time to take on that role. For her second series, The Ricki Lake Show (2013), she won an Emmy for Outstanding Talk Show Host. Lake is also an independent filmmaker with credits that include producing the critically acclaimed documentaries The Business of Being Born (2008), Weed the People (2018), and The Business of Birth Control (2021).
