Elise Neal is an experienced dancer and actress, who can hardly be her age since she looks way much younger than she is. Being a fitness maven and a healthy lifestyle enthusiast, Elise successfully combines her acting and dancing careers with fitness and beauty projects. Let’s find out more about Elise’s biography, family, net worth and more.
Early years and family
Elise Demetria Neal was born on 14 March 1966, in Memphis, Tennessee USA. Her father’s name is unknown, but he was a construction worker. Elise mother’s name is also unknown, but she was an experienced nurse, who went back to school and got her MD in the science of nursing, and started teaching other people to become nurses too. She still took Elise to dance classes and cheerleading classes – Elise remembers that though her parents were always very busy, they never stopped giving her as much love and support as they possibly could. Now Elise’s mother works at Downtown Women’s Center, focused on helping homeless and formerly homeless women to get out of that difficult life situation, and to personal stability.
Education and childhood hobbies
Elise once shared that reading was her fundamental hobby when she was a little girl, spending hours reading children’s books and fairy-tales. Elise began dancing ballet when she was six years old, and claims that she literally begged her mother to take her to ballet classes since she enjoyed them so much. She attended Overton High School in Memphis, where she studied at the faculty of Creative and Performing Arts, matriculating from her high school in 1984 and entering the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She studied there for two years, but then dropped out to pursue her dancing and acting career. She moved to New York as she had offers to participate in several musicals, and started travelling around the globe with theatre troupes. Later she decided to use her experience to transition into commercials, and that decision took her to Los Angeles.
Career
Elise’s early work as a dancer included Chubb Rock’s video for the song “Just the Two of Us”, then she appeared in Dannii Minogue’s music video “This Is It” in 1993 as a background dancer. She had her first roles in TV series’ in the ‘90s, appearing in such soap operas as “ABC Afterschool Specials” (1992 – 1997), “Loving” (1983 – 1995), “Family Matters” (1989 – 1998), and the highly popular “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” (1990 – 1996) in which she had the role of Wendy. Then she played Tanya Cooper in the popular comedy series “The Wayans Bros.” which ran for five seasons and told the story of Shawn and Marlon Wayans, famous comics and authors.
Elise was cast in such movies as “Let It Be Me” (1995), “Rosewood” (1997), and “How to Be a Player” (1997), and became even more popular after performing the role of Hallie in “Scream 2” (1997), a sequel to the popular thriller, with Neve Campbell and Courteney Cox. Her character was supposed to be murdered in the film, but the script leaked, and the scriptwriters had to change some major plot twists.
After appearing in more episodical roles in series, she was offered the role of Yvonne Hughley in the TV sitcom “The Hughleys”, which eventually brought her two NAACP nominations for Best Actress.
As for the 2000s, Elise starred in such movies as “The Rising Place” (2001), “Paid in Full” (2002), and “Hustle & Flow” (2005), then in more TV series, such as “Method & Red” (2004) and “Private Practice” (2007-2013), before she had the role of Gladys Knight in the TV biopic “Aaliyah: The Princess of R&B” (2014). The story of Aaliyah, who died in an aircraft crash back in 2001, influenced greatly the whole R&B and rap community of those times, with some rappers apparently quitting the industry in deep depression, with others creating tribute videos to honor her memory.
As for her most recent movies, Elise starred in “Logan” (2017), “Her Only Choice” and “We Belong Together”, both in 2018.
Elise is sure that she’s not the only one who keeps fit at her age, and she certainly doesn’t think that she is too old to go to the gym and it’s only about the mind set. She once noticed that her grandmother, who was older than 70, looked beautiful and amazing until the day she passed away, and still followed the rules of healthy lifestyle. Elise thinks that once a person changes the mind set, he/she starts eating healthily, finds time for training, has a scheduled day, and improves life in general. She works hard in the gym, and trains at home, so she often visits a physiotherapist for massage and stretching to avoid traumas and injuries. Elise founded “Elise Neal Body Bootcamp” to share her workout and nutrition secrets, advice and details.
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Personal life, ex-boyfriend Rick Ross
Elise is known to have have had a short relationship with 50 Cent, then dated Rick Ross from 2011 to 2012, but which ended for reasons they never revealed. Elise tried to build a relationship with F. Gary Gray, an American director, but she understood that she had to choose between her career activities and relationship duties, so she decided to focus on her career, and is still single and unattached.
Interesting facts, activities and friends
She hates cigarettes, and it’s always a challenge for her to play a smoker, so she always asks somebody to film her on the ‘phone camera when she tried to remember how to smoke, making funny faces and showing how hard she tries not to vomit. She also insists that she doesn’t drink any alcohol.
Elise was once a speaker at the event of Parent Institute Shelby County Schools – Family & Community Engagement, at which important actual topics were discussed such as bullying in schools, parenting struggles, maternity challenges, etc. She shared her thoughts on readiness for parenting, and some tips on how one could improve and develop in this direction.
Elise enjoys participating in beauty events, and was a speaker at Dollar General where she shared her make-up and hair styling tips and beauty shopping secrets. She also visited Beautycon event in 2018.
She claims herself to be best friends with Kevin Hart, sometimes meeting and spending time together. She was a close friend of Chelsea Smith, a top model, who was a Miss Texas , Miss USA and Miss Univers, but who died in 2018 when she was 45 years old, suffering from cancer, to Elise’s great sorrow.
We Memphis peeps just know ! Great meeting @evvie_music [Season 1 – winner of @TheFourOnFOX ]last night #heroesinthestruggle gala ? pic.twitter.com/4XHWAZZ5jb
— ELISE NEAL (@EliseNeal) December 3, 2018
Social Media activities
Recently having a scandal going on in social media, Elise claimed that a ‘bad site on Instagram’ had called her names for years, was bullying her and her followers. She involved her attorney to the case, and it’s now under investigation. Elise asked all her fans to only follow her official accounts on Twitter and Instagram, and not to get trapped and stalked by scammers.
As for her Twitter account, she has more than 140,000 readers, and posts daily. On Instagram, she has almost 200,000 followers, regularly posting sponsored pictures wearing outfits from Diva Boutique, BEACHRIOT, Mistress Rocks.
Appearance
A lot of Elise’s fans insist she doesn’t look her age at all, logical since Elise spends so much time keeping fit and paying attention to her make-up and hair. As for her hair color, it’s naturally dark-brown, and is naturally curled and long; she has brown eyes. Elise is 5ft 4ins (1.63m) tall, weighs around 136lbs (62kgs), and her vital statistics are 36-25-36.
Net worth
Elise Neal’s net worth, according to authoritative sources, is estimated to be around $3 million. She’s a hard working woman and has numerous movie projects in the near future, such as “Nineteen Summers”, “I Left My Girlfriend for Regina Jones“ (of which Elise is also an executive producer) and “All In”. She keeps getting new commercial offers and eagerly participates in all events she’s invited to as a speaker or as a host, so her net worth is only going to grow.
Source: A P
