Erica Gimpel

Erica Fawn Gimpel (born June 25, 1964) is an American actress, singer, dancer, and composer. She is best known for her roles on television shows Fame as Coco Hernandez and on Profiler as Angel Brown. She is also known for her recurring roles on the television shows ER as Adele Newman and on Veronica Mars as Alicia Fennel. From 2018 to 2020, Gimpel had a series regular role as Trish on the series God Friended Me.

Gimpel was a judge on RTÉ One's Fame: The Musical, an Irish TV talent show seeking a boy and a girl to play Nick and Serena respectively in the Irish touring production of Fame.

In January 2010, Gimpel released her first CD, Spread your Wings and Fly.

Personal life
Gimpel was born in Manhattan, New York City in 1964. She graduated from New York's High School of Performing Arts a few months after she started filming her role as a student at the same school for the television show Fame. She had toured the United States and Europe with her mother, singer Phyllis Bash, who was in the opera Porgy and Bess. Her father was Joseph Gimpel, an actor, singer and writer.

Film and television
Gimpel has starred in numerous primetime and streaming shows including NCIS: New Orleans, Chicago Med, Grey's Anatomy, Shut Eye, True Blood, Criminal Minds, Nikita, Rizzoli & Isles, House, ER, Profiler, and Veronica Mars. One of Gimpel's favorite projects was playing Trish on the CBS drama God Friended Me for two seasons. She played Ellie Fielding in Mayfair Witches and Brittany Arrington on The Night Agent.

On film, she has appeared in Tuesday Morning Ride (1995), Smoke, King of New York, No Such Thing, Freaky Friday, Romeo and Juliet in Harlem, and Sylvie's Love, and in the independent feature Bang Bang (2023).

Theater
Theater credits include originating the role of Mayme in Lynn Nottage's award-winning Intimate Apparel., Glory Bee in States of Shock, and Nelly in Each Day Dies With Sleep. Gimpel received the Stage Raw Award for Best Solo Performance for her work in the one-woman play Sister by Michael Phillip Edwards.

Music
Gimpel composed and performed the song "This Moment" on God Friended Me. She also co-wrote and performed the song "Goodbye" on Babylon 5.