Yvette Nicole Brown

Yvette Nicole Brown is one of the episodic actors of Once Upon a Time, portraying the role of Ursula.

Early Life
Brown was born in East Cleveland, Ohio. She is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She became a member as an undergrad at The University of Akron (Delta Pi chapter). Brown took two acting classes, one at the University of Akron, where she graduated, and the other in Hollywood.

Career
She appeared as "Yvette" in the music video "1-4-All-4-1" by the East Coast Family a Michael Bivins project, for Biv10 Records. Brown said of the experience, "It was a great run, but I guess music was just never meant to be for me."

Brown first appeared on commercials before entering television shows and films a few years later. She has since played roles on television shows such as The War At Home, Malcolm in the Middle, That's So Raven, and the U.S. version of The Office. She also had a recurring role as movie theater manager Helen Dubois in the Nickelodeon TV show Drake & Josh. Brown reprised the role in the season 2 episode of Victorious entitled "Helen Back Again." She also provides the voice of "Cookie" on The Hub's Pound Puppies.

Since 2009, Brown has starred on the NBC comedy Community as Shirley Bennett. Brown is very active with fans of the show on Twitter and in person at live events.

She has appeared in television commercials for Hamburger Helper, Big Lots, Pine-Sol, Comcast, Aquapod, Shout, Fiber One, Yoplait Yogurt, DiGiorno Pizza, Dairy Queen, and Time Warner. She has appeared on episodes of The Thrilling Adventure Hour as "The Troubleshooter" in the Sparks Nevada, Marshall On Mars series.

In 2012, Brown appeared as a celebrity contestant on GSN's version of The Pyramid with fellow Community cast member Danny Pudi.

In November, 2013, Brown appeared in the sixth episode of the third season of ABC's Once Upon a Time as Ursula.