Ricki Lake is an American television presenter and actress best known for playing Tracy Turnblad in the film Hairspray and for her world-famous talk show. She was the youngest person in history to host a syndicated talk show when her show debuted, and in 2013 she won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Talk Show Host.

Born in New York, she made her movie debut in 1988 as the lead character Tracy Turnblad in the John Walter’s cult classic movie Hairspray. She went on to star in several other movies by Waters, including Cry-Baby opposite Johnny Depp, Serial Mom with Kathleen Turner and Cecil B. Demented alongside Melanie Griffith. She also acted on television in war drama China Beach, sitcom The King of Queens and Drop Dead Diva.

Multi-talented Lake is equally famous for her talk show Ricki Lake that ran for nearly 11 years from September 1993 until May 2004. The show was primarily aimed at young adults, teenagers and college students, and gained popularity around the world after being shown in the UK, Australia, the Netherlands and the Middle East. After the show ended Lake took on other presenting roles and also produced the documentary The Business of Being Born. In 2012 she hosted one season of a new talk show, The Ricki Lake Show, and won her first Daytime Emmy as host. Lake finished in third place on the 13th season of Dancing with the Stars, and continues to appear regularly on television shows on both sides of the Atlantic, including ITV’s Loose Women and Fox series The Masked Singer.