Ricki Lake Ricki Lake Ricki Pamela Lake (born September 21, 1968) is an American actress, television presenter and producer. Lake is best known for her lead role as Tracy Turnblad in the 1988 film Hairspray. She is also known for her talk show which was broadcast internationally from September 1993 until May 2004. When Lake's show debuted, she was 24 and credited as being the youngest person to host a syndicated talk show at the time. In autumn 2012, Lake embarked on a second syndicated talk show project "The Ricki Lake Show" (dubbed as "The New Ricki Lake Show"), which aired on
Ricki Lake with three-time champion Derek Hough and cited Kirstie Alley's appearance as an inspiration to do the show. Lake achieved tremendous success, consistently achieving high scores. After making the finals, Lake was announced as the contestant in third place, losing to television personality Rob Kardashian and actor and Army veteran J. R. Martinez, despite having higher scores than both. On April 20, 2011, Lake signed with Twentieth Television to develop "The Ricki Lake Show", which premiered in September 2012. The new program has a more "Oprah"-like format than that of her former talk show. It was cancelled after one season. Lake