Margaret Avery is a singer and actress. She was nominated for an Academy Award (Best Supporting Actress, 1985 ) for her role as Shug Avery in The Color Purple (the film of Alice Walker's novel, filmed by Steven Spielberg with Whoopi Goldberg).

Avery had significant roles in:

• Heat Wave
• Night Trap
• Riverbend
• White Man's Burden
• Return of the Superfly
• Which Way is Up?
• Blueberry Hill
• Cyborg 3: The Recycler
• The Color Purple
• Lathe of Heaven
• For Us The Living
• Louis Armstrong - Chicago Style

Moreover she appeared in:

• Cool Breeze (debut, 1972)
• Scott Joplin
• The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh
• Psychopath
• Terror House
• Magnum Force
• Hell Up in Harlem
• Ultimate Set-Up
• Second to Die