Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Taraji Penda Henson (born September 11, 1970) is an American actress. She is best known for her roles as Yvette in Baby Boy (2001), Shug in Hustle and Flow (2005) and Queenie in The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (2008), for which she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 2009. In 2009, she appeared in Tyler Perry''s I Can Do Bad All By Myself as April, an alcoholic singer. Henson was born in Southeast Washington, D.C., the daughter of Bernice Gordon, a corporate manager at Woodward & Lothrop, and Boris Henson, a janitor and fabricator. She is the great-granddaughter of Matthew Henson, one of the explorers who discovered the Geographic North Pole. Her first and middle name are of Swahili origin, with her first name meaning "hope" and her middle name meaning "love."Henson went to Oxon Hill High School in Oxon Hill, Maryland.