LaWanda Page (born Alberta Richmond; October 19, 1920[2] – September 14, 2002)[4][5] was an American actress, comedian and dancer whose career spanned six decades.

"[8] In her youth, Page danced at the Friendly Inn Settlement in Cleveland, a community center run by the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

[8] Her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and she attended Banneker Elementary School, where she met Redd Foxx, two years her junior.

Eventually, both entered the field of comedy separately and performed their own stage acts, working alongside each other on the Chitlin' Circuit and Foxx's TV sitcom Sanford and Son.

She later described one East St. Louis club where she worked as "the kind of place where if you ain’t home by nine o’clock at night you can be declared legally dead.

[8] She also toured her fire-dancing act and made appearances at nightclubs across the country[15] and world, including Canada, Brazil and Japan.

"[14] Page may have also been introduced to stand-up while touring the Chitlin' Circuit, where she shared stages with noted comedians such as Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor.

"[3] Page recorded five live solo comedy albums for the Laff Records label and several other collaborative live comedy albums with Skillet, Leroy & Co. in the late 1960s and early 1970s[2] under her LaWanda Page stage name (although she was often billed by her first name only, sometimes styled as La Wanda).

[20] In 1985, Page performed a raunchy set during the all-female stand-up special Women Tell the Dirtiest Jokes.

Also included in the film were sets by, among others, Lois Bromfield, Marsha Warfield, Patty Rosborough, Carole Montgomery, and Judy Tenuta.

However, prior to taping, producers became concerned when Page, whose experience was limited primarily to nightclub stages, seemed to have difficulty working in a sitcom format.

[1] Foxx said that "you never heard of the lady, but the night that first show of LaWanda's goes on the air, there'll be dancing in the streets in every ghetto in the United States.

The devoutly religious Esther character contrasted sharply with the raunchy, expletive-filled material of Page's live act and records.

After the sixth season, Foxx and his co-star Demond Wilson left the show over unfair treatment and pay disputes with the network, leading to Sanford and Son’s cancellation in 1977.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, she appeared in a series of comical Church's Chicken television commercials featuring the catchphrase "Gotta love it!".

(1982), Good-bye, Cruel World (1983), Mausoleum (1983), My Blue Heaven (1990), Shakes the Clown, (1991), CB4 (1993), Friday (1995) and Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood (1996).

[29] Scholar L. H. Stallings argues that through blue comedy, a genre often associated with men, Page and other black female comics in the genre "continue a Black female trickster tradition dedicated to creating oral cultures, divergent language practices, and initiatives to change definitions and boundaries of gender and sexuality in society”.

with lilting and rhythmic gospel vocals that, when coupled with her salacious humor, played with divisions between the sacred, secular, and lewd.

[29] Page employed slight impressions to distinguish the characters in her stories, but primarily relayed her tales as an omniscient narrator.

At one rowdy 1989 performance in Richmond, Virginia, Page removed her underwear while on stage and auctioned it to the highest bidder in the increasingly rambunctious crowd.

Page's daughter, the evangelist Clara Estella Roberta Johnson, died on June 4, 2006 in Los Angeles, California at the age of 69.