"Funniest Comedian WANDA SYKES vs MAGDA SZUBANSKI"

Wanda Yvette Sykes (born March 7, 1964) is an American actress, comedian, and writer. She was first recognized for her work as a writer on The Chris Rock Show, for which she won a Primetime Emmy Award in 1999. In 2004, Entertainment Weekly named Sykes as one of the 25 funniest people in America. She is also known for her roles on CBS' The New Adventures of Old Christine (2006–10), HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm (2001–11), and ABC's Black-ish (2015–present). Aside from her television appearances, Sykes has also had a career in film, appearing in Monster-in-Law (2005), My Super Ex-Girlfriend (2006), Evan Almighty (2007) and License to Wed (2007), as well as voicing characters in animated films such as Over the Hedge (2006), Barnyard (2006), Brother Bear 2 (2006), Rio (2011), Ice Age: Continental Drift (2012), Ice Age: Collision Course (2016) and UglyDolls (2019). Wanda Sykes was born in Portsmouth, Virginia. Her family moved to Maryland when she was in third grade. Her mother, Marion Louise (née Peoples), worked as a banker, and her father, Harry Ellsworth Sykes, was a U.S. Army colonel employed at the Pentagon. Sykes' family history was researched for an episode of the 2012 PBS genealogy program Finding Your Roots With Henry Louis Gates Jr. Her ancestry was traced back to a 1683 court case involving her paternal ninth great-grandmother Elizabeth Banks, a free white woman and indentured servant, who gave birth to a biracial child, Mary Banks, fathered by a slave, who inherited her mother's free status. According to historian Ira Berlin, a specialist in the history of American slavery, the Sykes family history is "the only such case that I know of in which it is possible to trace a black family rooted in freedom from the late 17th century to the present." Sykes attended Arundel High School in Gambrills, Maryland, and went on to graduate from Hampton University, where she earned a Bachelor of Science degree in marketing and became a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha. After college, her first job was as a contracting specialist at the National Security Agency, where she worked for five years.

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Magdalene Mary Szubanski AO (/ʒəˈbænski/ zhə-BAN-skee; born 12 April 1961) is an English born actress, comedian, writer and mental health, suicide prevention and same-sex relationship advocate. Szubanski faced widespread criticism and calls for her hand back her officer (AO) in the Order of Australia award after she made personal criticisms of the appearance of the wife of the Australian Prime Minister, comparing her to a character in a fictional religious extremist society of sex slaves. Szubanski's career started as a writer and performer of sketch comedy. She later became involved in production of TV, film acting, and musical theatre. She performed in Fast Forward, Kath & Kim as Sharon Strzelecki and in the films Babe (1995) and Babe: Pig in the City (1998) as Esme Hoggett. Szubanski formerly polled as the most recognised and liked Australian television personality in 2003 and 2004 polls. In 2015, she released her memoir Reckoning. Szubanski revealed she had suicidal thoughts and suffered mental health and related eating and weight issues and has become an advocate for mental health. In 2017, she promoted the campaign for same-sex marriage in Australia and the co-chair of Australian Marriage Equality rated her crucial in the success of the "Yes" campaign. On 26 January 2019, Szubanski was appointed an officer (AO) in the general division of the Order of Australia "for distinguished service to the performing arts as an actor, comedian and writer, and as a campaigner for marriage equality."

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