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I was pretty young when I decided I wanted to, well, more so be a singer. I started singing in church in my hometown, East Orange, New Jersey. I knew when I was about five or six that I wanted to be a performer.

I always wanted to perform in some capacity since I was a kid - I was a ballerina, then a singer before acting.

I had wanted to be a dancer when I was younger. But at some point I figured out I was a better singer.

There were times in my career I went a little further than I wanted because of expectations. Doing certain things onstage when children were in the audience, wearing certain clothes, singing certain lyrics.

I trained as a singer before I was an actor. I was a kid singer, I went to theater and choir school, and then I got music scholarships throughout my education. And that's what I was going to do. And then I took a left turn and went to drama school and became an actor.

Growing up, I always wanted to be a singer, and I've done that.

When I was a kid, I had ambitions for being a television announcer, which was before television took off, you know, in the late '40s. And just through necessity, going out looking for work, I was starting to sing, and dance, and act, and I never expected to do that, nor to have any success at it at least.

I've wanted to perform my entire life. I found a paper I wrote in kindergarten class about what I wanted to be when I grew up - and I wrote 'a famous singer!'

I danced for a while, and I knew I could sing, so I just began singing in a praise band at church and doing musical theater and jazz vocal performance in school. One didn't really lead to another; I was just always interested in the performance arts.

I wanted to sing when I was little. That's what I liked doing. It didn't occur to me that you became famous or anything like that.