What The In Living Color Fly Girls Are Doing Today

In Living Color is considered one of the most influential shows of its time. Unapologetically controversial in much of its content, the sketch show was home to some comedy giants before they became household names. Created by Keenen Ivory Wayans and launched in 1990, the original cast included Wayans family members Kim, Damon, and Shawn, along with Tommy Davidson, Jim Carrey, David Alan Grier, and Kelly Coffield. While In Living Color was launching some of Hollywood's biggest comedy careers, however, the stage was also intermittently graced by a group of dancers that would become a touchstone of the show. 

For many, the Fly Girls were the true aesthetic of In Living Color. This group of talented, culturally diverse hip hop dancers embodied the spirit of the show. As a collective, the dancing troupe created a legacy that lived on for years, as seen in Bruno Mars' clear homage to the group's style and moves in the 2018 music video for his song "Finesse." Individually, the Fly Girls went on to forge enormous careers, with some in still in front of the camera and some behind it. In this piece, we'll take a look at what the In Living Color Fly Girls are doing today.

Though not technically a Fly Girl, Rosie Perez choreographed the moves that helped make the dance crew what it was. In 1989, Perez's dancing made its mark in the opening credits of Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing. Shortly afterwards, she replaced A.J. Johnson, the originally planned In Living Color choreographer, because of a scheduling conflict. Though Perez was excited for the opportunity, she met some resistance from the dancers.

"As soon as I opened the door, it's like, 'OK, she's New York. She's Puerto Rican.' You know, they had all these preconceived notions of who I was and my abilities," Perez said on Here & Now. "And I had an assistant who had been working with me forever. His name is Arthur Rainer, and he's black. He just looked at me, and he said, 'Forget these girls. Come on, let's do our thing.' And thank goodness he said that because he knew the real me. I was shaking inside. And I said, 'OK, line up,' and you know, and that's how it went."

It's that strength of character that helped Perez build a lasting 30-year career. She moved from In Living Color to a memorable role in White Men Can't Jump, choreographed for some of the world's biggest musicians, and earned a 1994 Academy Award nomination for her role in Fearless. Decades later, she's still at it, making huge moves in films like, Birds of Prey and The Last Thing He Wanted.

When she was a young girl, Sasha Alexander set her sights on a career as an Olympic figure skater. She explained on The Ellen DeGeneres Show that an injury cut her dream short, so she took aim at dancing instead. "I had a momentary stint as a Fly Girl on In Living Girl," she said in the interview. The gig didn't last long, however, because Alexander's parents weren't thrilled with the career move. "They didn't let me take the job any further, because they didn't want me skipping geometry to dance around in hot pants," she said. 

The short-lived gig did, however, lead her to a career in acting. According to an interview with IGN, Alexander started performing on stage and then got into TV roles with a part in Wasteland. From there, she got her big break, landing the part of Gretchen Witter on Dawson's Creek. Though she is probably best known for playing Maura Isles on Rizzoli & Isles, a part she held for the show's seven seasons, as of this writing, Alexander was most recently in the Netflix hit film, Dangerous Lies.

Lisa Marie Todd was one of the original members of the Fly Girls, and her time on In Living Color remains one of her greatest memories. "I had been working for a bit, about a year or so, and I had done a couple of sitcoms and started acting, and I was still doing the dance jobs, and my agent called and said, 'Hey, there's this pilot they're doing. It's a comedy sketch show, and they need four dancers,'" she recalled in a Personal Space interview. "So I auditioned. We shot the pilot, and I forgot about it, because that's what you do. You just forgot about those things because you never know if they're going to go or not. ... The show happened to get picked up and started, and it was probably the most amazing thing that I had done as a dancer."

After In Living Color, Todd landed a part on The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, but she would later leave the celebrity world behind to raise her daughter. In 2009, Todd started her own company and brand, Marie Todd, which specializes in jewelry and fragrances. While motherhood and running the business now occupy her time, Todd's past successes aren't lost on her. "I don't think I realized what the show was while I was doing it," she told Personal Space. "It was just such a unique opportunity that came around, and I'm really grateful and happy that I had a chance to do that."