Other main characters include her husband Lester (Hal Williams), their daughter Brenda (Regina King), landlady Rose Holloway (Alaina Reed Hall), and neighbors Sandra Clark (Jackée Harry) and Pearl Shay (Helen Martin).

The series was adapted from Two Twenty Seven, a stage play written in 1978 by Christine Houston about the lives of women in a predominantly black apartment building in 1950s Chicago.

This role was similar in nature to that of tart-tongued Florence; Gibbs's character, housewife Mary Jenkins, loved a good gossip and often spoke what she thought, with sometimes not-so-favorable results.

227 followed the lives of people in a middle-class apartment building, 227 Lexington Place (the numerical address from which the sitcom's name comes), in a black neighborhood in Northeast, Washington, D.C.

Her husband, Lester (Hal Williams), had his own construction company, and their daughter, Brenda (Regina King, in her first television acting role), was boy-crazy yet smart and studious.

Also cast in 227 was Sandra Clark (Jackée Harry), Mary's younger neighbor who constantly bickered back and forth with her about their respective views on life.

While Mary was a happily married housewife with a stable lifestyle, Sandra was a stylish, loose, man-hungry, somewhat ditzy diva, and a serial dater who dressed provocatively.

Also living in the building was Pearl Shay (Helen Martin), a feisty but kind-hearted busybody neighbor who was known for snooping and had a sharp sense of humor.

Pearl had a grandson named Calvin Dobbs (Curtis Baldwin), whom Brenda had a crush on and would finally date later in the series' run.

However, Alexandria left during Calvin's graduation episode near the end of season four to reunite with her father, who, after completing his archaeological dig in the Amazon, had moved to London to catalogue his items.

[2] With the exception of The Cosby Show and A Different World, 227 achieved higher ratings than other sitcoms airing at the time with a predominantly African-American cast during the first two seasons of its original run on NBC.