Ian Alexander Sr. Biography

Alexander Sr. was born in the United States of America. Little to no information is available on his family and early life.

Alexander Sr. and Regina King met sometime in the 1990s. A native of California, King started her acting career in 1985 in NBC’s sitcom ‘227’, portraying the character Brenda Jenkins. King played the role for the ensuing six years, until 1990, when the show concluded. She made her cinematic debut in 1991 in the teen hood drama film ‘Boyz n the Hood’. In 1995, she worked with Ice Cube and Chris Tucker in the hit stoner comedy ‘Friday’. A year later, she shared screen space with Martin Lawrence in his own directorial venture ‘A Thin Line Between Love and Hate’. She also got the chance to work with Tom Cruise in the 1996 sports romantic comedy ‘Jerry Maguire’. In the film, King portrayed Marcee Tidwell, the wife of Cuba Gooding Jr.’s Rodney "Rod" Tidwell. The film was a critical and commercial success and Gooding Jr. won the Academy Award for the Best Supporting Actor in 1996 for his performance.

King returned to television in 2002 to play the character Cynthia in the short-lived NBC sitcom ‘Leap of Faith’. Between 2005 and 2014, she lent her voice to the characters Riley and Huey Freeman in Cartoon Network’s adult animated sitcom ‘The Boondocks’. She then played the role of Detective Lydia Adams in Warner Bros.’ crime drama series ‘Southland’. She also played the recurring character Janine Davis, the Caltech's administrator of Human Resources (HRA), in CBS’ sitcom ‘The Big Bang Theory’.

On the big screen, she has appeared in films like ‘Enemy of the State’ (1998), ‘How Stella Got Her Groove Back’ (1998), ‘Daddy Day Care’ (2003), ‘A Cinderella Story’ (2004), ‘Ray’ (2004) and ‘Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous’ (2005). For her portrayal of Aliyah Shadeed and Terri LaCroix in seasons one and two of ABC’s anthology series ‘American Crime’, she won two Primetime Emmy Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Movie in 2015 and 2016. In 2019, King is set to portray an unspecified role in the upcoming television series ‘Watchmen’. She is also a prolific TV director and has worked with Shonda Rhimes on her show ‘Scandal’.

Alexander Sr. and King’s son, Ian Alexander Jr., was born on January 21, 1996. They got married about a year after that and made Los Angeles their home. Alexander Sr. attended various events with his wife.

The couple divorced in 2007. There were rumours that they separated because Alexander Sr. had an affair. There were also allegations of physical abuse and drug use levelled against him. According to King, the initial months after the divorce were agonizing. She was still angry about how convoluted their divorce proceeding had become and had no desire to run into him anywhere. However, during one of their son’s basketball games, she saw him across the stands, also cheering for their son. After the game was over, she approached him and they spoke at length. They both realised that they had to work together to raise their son. King has stated that the following few months were not easy either. They had to find a way to re-forge a friendship. Despite this, they continued to work on their redefined relationship and co-parented Alexander Jr. The spitting image of his father, Alexander Jr. is working in the entertainment industry like his mother. He made his acting debut in the 2016 TV movie ‘The Snowy Day’.

Since the divorce, Alexander Sr. has decided to stay out of the spotlight, leading a private life. While King had a very public relationship with actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner between 2011 and 2013, not much is known about Alexander Sr.’s personal life. However, in a 2015 interview to ‘The Chicago Tribune,’ King did reveal that Alexander Sr. was dating a “really cool woman” at the time.