Vanessa Williams arrived on Wisteria Lane as Renee Perry in Season 7 of "Desperate Housewives" and quickly became one of the housewives, despite the fact that she wasn't a wife, and certainly wasn't about to sit around the house.
Renee Perry's connection to Wisteria Lane is Lynette Scavo. The two had gone to college together, but their lives had certainly taken different paths. Renee had gone on to marry a famous baseball player (Doug Perry) and enjoy the life of a rich sports wife. (Something Vanessa Williams knows a bit about -- she was married to basketball player Rick Fox.) Lynette had a successful career in advertising, but her main goal was to make a life for herself, husband Tom and their five children. When Renee comes to visit and the two see each other again for the first time in many years, it seems they have nothing in common.
As the practical housewife Lynette and the spoiled Renee reacquaint, it seems the friendship is still very much alive. Renee decides to move into town, and though the other housewives are a bit reluctant to accept her at first, she slowly becomes one of them. Renee gossips and schemes with the best, but is genuinely upset when Lynette finds out that her former sorority sister had an affair with her current husband.
It just takes a few episodes for Lynette and Renee to make up and expand their interior design business together. Renee also becomes a more sympathetic character when she finds out her baseball star ex-husband is getting married. We also learn, during a conversation with Gaby, that Renee's mother committed suicide.
Vanessa Williams had quite the resume, even before appearing on "Desperate Housewives." She was crowned as the first African-American Miss America in 1983, and was forced to relinquish her title when a scandal broke surrounding some nude photos that were taken of her. Despite the setback, she became an award-winning recording artist and actress on both stage and in films such as "Soul Food" and "The Right Stuff." Her hit, "Save the Best for Last," was No. 1 on the charts, and her version of "Colors of the Wind" from the movie "Pocahontas" won an Oscar for Best Original Song.
The first regular television series for native New Yorker Williams was "Ugly Betty," which finished its four year run in 2010. She joined the cast of "Desperate Housewives" soon after when it needed a main character replacement for Nicollette Sheridan, who played Edie. Vanessa Williams' Renee Perry is set to be a pivotal character in the show's final season.
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