Anna Maria Horsford is an American actress born on March 6, 1947, in Harlem, New York City. She grew up in a family of five children, with her father Victor Horsford being an investment real estate broker originally from Barbuda and her mother Lillian Agatha Horsford emigrating from Antigua and Barbuda in the 1940s.

Anna Maria Horsford attended Wadleigh Junior High School and the High School of Performing Arts, where she began her journey into acting through the Harlem Youth for Change program.

Her career took off with her first major role in television as a producer for the PBS show Soul!, which aired between 1968 and 1973. She made her first TV appearance in 1973 on the game show To Tell the Truth, where she impersonated Laura Livingston, one of the first female military police officers.

Over the years, she made guest appearances on various sitcoms such as The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Moesha, The Bernie Mac Show, The Shield, Girlfriends, and Everybody Hates Chris. She had main roles on the sitcoms Amen as Thelma Frye and The Wayans Bros. as Dee Baxter.

Anna Maria Horsford has appeared in numerous movies, including Times Square (1980), The Fan (1981), Presumed Innocent (1990), Set It Off (1996), Along Came a Spider (2001), Our Family Wedding (2010), and A Madea Christmas (2013).

Her role as Craig Jones' mother Betty in the comedy film Friday and its sequel Friday After Next (2002) is particularly notable.

She has been nominated for several awards throughout her career, including the NAACP Image Award and the Daytime Emmy Awards. She was nominated for the Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Guest Performer in a Drama Series in 2016 and Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series in 2017 for her role as Vivienne Avant on The Bold and the Beautiful.

It is widely believed that she has been married to a man named Daniel Wolf for decades, though she has never publicly discussed her romantic life.