It was on this day,   September 2, 1947,  television, film, stage and commercial actress Venida Evans was born.

Born in Ypsilanti, Michigan, but raised in Detroit,  Evans graduated from Southwestern High School in Detroit.   She later attended Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.

Evans’ earlier film credits included a small role as a nurse in the 1981 film, Only When I Laugh. She has also appeared in the 1998 Merchant Ivory Productions film, Side Streets and in several episodes of the NBC series Law & Order and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. Other television credits have included Third Watch and New York Undercover.

Most recently, beginning in 2008 Evans has appeared in a series of IKEA commercials as an invisible, older woman known simply as “The Muse,”  These commercials have been described variously as both “surreal” and “creepy.”

Evans’ recent work has includes a recurring role on the CBS soap opera, Guiding Light, where she plays a grandmother named Loretta.

Let’s wish Venida Evans a Happy Birthday today.  She is a Michigan original.