What is Laverne Cox Net Worth and Salary?
Laverne Cox is an American actress, reality television personality, and television producer who has a net worth of $6 million. Laverne Cox is known for her role as Sophia Burset in the acclaimed Netflix series ‘Orange is the New Black’. For the role, she became the first transgender person ever to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for acting. Cox has appeared in numerous other shows and movies, and has graced the covers of various magazines.
Youth and education
Laverne Cox was born on May 29, 1972 in Mobile, Alabama. She has an identical twin brother named M Lamar and was raised by her single mother and grandmother in the AME Zion church. Growing up, Cox was bullied for not acting masculine enough and attempted suicide when she was 11 years old. For her primary education, she attended the Alabama School of Fine Arts in Birmingham, where she studied creative writing before switching to dance. After this, Cox attended Indiana University Bloomington for two years, then transferred to Marymount Manhattan College. At the latter school, he began to study acting.
The beginnings of a career on television
Cox made her television debut in 2008; that year, she appeared in both “Law & Order” and “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” episodes. More significantly, she appeared as a contestant on the first season of the VH1 reality series I Want to Work for Diddy. After this, VH1 approached Cox about giving her her own show. This led to the transformation series “TRANSform Me”, in which Cox became the first transgender person of color to star in and produce her own show.
Discovering “Orange is the New Black”.
Cox rose to widespread fame in 2013 when she began playing the recurring role of transgender inmate and former firefighter Sophia Burset on the Netflix streaming series Orange is the New Black. Over the course of the show’s seven seasons through 2019, Cox has won a slew of awards, including multiple Emmy nominations. In the process, she became the first transgender person to ever be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for acting. Additionally, Cox has twice won the Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the show’s ensemble cast. A groundbreaking series for many reasons, such as its diverse representation of gender, ethnicity and sexuality, “Orange is the New Black” gave Cox a unique platform to give voice to the lives of trans people.
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Further career in television
While still on “Orange is the New Black,” Cox made appearances on the television series “Faking It,” “Girlfriends’ Guide to Divorce,” and “The Mindy Project.” He also executive produced and appeared in the documentary special “Laverne Cox Presents: The T Word,” for which he won a Daytime Emmy Award. Cox next appeared as Dr. Frank-N-Furter in the musical comedy television film The Rocky Horror Picture Show: Let’s Do the Time Warp Again, a remake of the cult classic. Her next major series role came in 2017 when she began playing transgender attorney Cameron Wirth on the CBS series Doubt. However, the show was canceled after two episodes.
Among her other credits, Cox has made appearances on shows such as “Weird City,” “Dear White People,” “A Black Lady Sketch Show,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” and “The Blacklist.” She also lent her voice to episodes of “Tuca & Bertie” and “Awkwafina is Nora from Queens.” In 2022, Cox appeared on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and began portraying Kacy Duke in the Netflix miniseries Inventing Anna.
Film career
In films, Cox had her first major role in the 2011 dance film Musical Chairs. A few years later, he starred in the thriller “36 Saints.” Cox began landing bigger roles starting in 2015 when she appeared alongside Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Sam Elliott and Marcia Gay Haden in Grandma. He later starred in “Freak Show” and “Can You Keep a Secret?” and made a cameo appearance in the 2019 remake of “Charlie’s Angels”. In 2020, Cox had roles in two dark comedy thrillers: ‘Bad Hair’ and the Oscar-winning ‘Promising Young Woman’ starring Carey Mulligan. Her other credits include the documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives on Screen and the action comedy Jolt.
modeling
As a model, Cox has been featured in a multitude of publications and campaigns. In 2014, she appeared in V magazine’s annual Rebels issue and also graced the cover of Essence magazine. The following year, Cox posed nude for Allure magazine’s annual “Nudes” issue, making her the first transgender actress to do so. She has also appeared on the covers of Entertainment Weekly, British Vogue and Time. Beyond the page, Cox headlined the New York Fashion Week show for luxury electronics retailer 11 Honore in 2019.
Activism and honors
Cox is prolific in LGBTQ activism. In 2014, she participated in a campaign against a law in Arizona that made it easier for police to target transgender women of color on the streets. Later in 2017, Cox collaborated with the ACLU and various trans people for a video detailing trans history and political resistance.
In recognition of her activism, Cox has won numerous honors, including GLAAD’s Stephen F. Kolzak Award; Transgender Law Center’s Claire Skiffington Vanguard Award; and an honorary doctorate from the New School.