Danitra Vance

CTL-E-5722 · Person · other · 1954–1994

VERIFIED evidence grade — build store (JSON graph)

Combined Graph record U-06997 · provenance: build store (JSON graph), record CTL-E-5722.

Danitra Vance (July 13, 1954 – August 21, 1994) was an American comedian and actress born in Chicago, Illinois, and raised on the South Side. A Thornton Township High School graduate (1972) active in theater and debate, she graduated with honors from Roosevelt University and studied drama at London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. After performing with The Second City and becoming an Off-Broadway favorite, Vance joined Saturday Night Live for its eleventh season in 1985–86 as the first Black woman in the show's primary cast; her recurring work included the “That Black Girl” sketch and the character Cabrini Green Harlem Watts Jackson. She won an Obie Award and an NAACP Image Award, and appeared in the films Sticky Fingers (1988), Limit Up, and Jumpin' at the Boneyard. Diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990, she kept performing, including the solo piece The Radical Girl's Guide to Radical Mastectomy at the Joseph Papp Public Theater in 1991–93, and died in Markham, Illinois, on August 21, 1994, aged 40. As documented after her death, she was also among the first LGBT members of the SNL cast, though she was not publicly out in her lifetime.

The record

• Also known as: Dan Vance

Notes

Staged 2026-10-16 under CTL-GOV-006 (Fill 500 Lists Wave 4, Tier 1 — 747 Program). Gate A (2026-10-16): no Danitra Vance entity in the live graph at 3,409 entities (exact/normalized/alias + token containment); ID CTL-E-5722 free. Supply: 747 Supply Ledger, Fill 500 Comedians gap #28. Vital status: DECEASED — died August 21, 1994, Markham, Illinois, of breast cancer (Wikipedia and IMDb agree); tribute treatment applies in the Curator's Judgment. The dyslexia detail carried in some secondary accounts (difficulty with cue cards, per Al Franken's Live from New York) is not in the description: it rests on a single retrospective account and is noted here instead of asserted. STATISTICS (sourced, dated): SNL season 11, 1985–86, 17 episodes — IMDb, accessed 2026-10-16. MEDIA: photo HELD (candidate named in the packet — Wikipedia carries a 1987 portrait; its file page was not read in this pass); chart FILLED; video HELD; audio HELD. Blocked edges documented in the packet: Roosevelt University has_alumnus (honors degree documented; no graph entity) — blocked on the missing endpoint, not the evidence. MEDIA LAYER (staged 2026-10-16; full per-asset PHOTO-001 records + embed specs in the packet's staged JSON, Drive packet folder): map = N/A (Persons receive no maps (media-layer rule carried from the CULTGRAPH packets).) | visual_assets = HELD: No Commons file page could be read at file-page level in this pass, so the slot is HELD rather than cleared on | chart = FILLED (Built only from this record's own sourced, dated facts; data table printed in the packet.) | video = HELD (No CTL Short for this subject — checked against the CTL Shorts Link Map catalog (2026-10-15) by full name and ) | audio = HELD (No matching-entity audio with a verified rights basis located in this pass. Vance's broadcast performances are)

Relationships

• The Second City — performed at
  Vance performed with The Second City before her Off-Broadway and Saturday Night Live work.

Sources

• Wikipedia, “Danitra Vance” — born July 13, 1954, Chicago; died August 21, 1994, Markham, Illinois; Thornton Township High School 1972; Roosevelt University (honors); Webber Douglas Academy (MFA); The Second City; SNL season 11 (1985–86), first Black woman of the primary cast; Obie Award and NAACP Image Award; Sticky Fingers, Limit Up, Jumpin' at the Boneyard; breast cancer diagnosis 1990 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danitra_Vance (build store)
• IMDb, Danitra Vance (nm0888503) — SNL 1985–86, 17 episodes, characters incl. Cabrini Green Jackson; filmography through Jumpin' at the Boneyard; solo piece The Radical Girl's Guide to Radical Mastectomy, Joseph Papp Public Theater, 1991–93; died August 21, 1994, Markham (breast cancer) — https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0888503/ (build store)
• WikiTree, “Danitra Vance (1954–1994)” — family and Thornton Township details; Chicago Tribune obituary (Mary Schmich) quotation on her first SNL appearance — wikitree.com, accessed 2026-10-16 (build store)

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Record CTL-E-5722 · Combined Graph record U-06997 · CultureTechLens Knowledge Graph · 3 sources · 1 mapped relationship.
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Researched and maintained by the CultureTechLens research program · CultureTechLens Combined Graph, Release 2026-11-04. Corrections are public: the corrections log.

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