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
The Ricki Lake Show Lake cited her performance on "Dancing with the Stars" as the reason behind the interest in her show. On February 4, 2013, it was announced that "The Ricki Lake Show" would not return for a second season due to low ratings, with the series averaging only 926,000 viewers. Despite not being renewed for another season, "The Ricki Lake Show" continued production until March 21, 2013 and reruns aired throughout the summer. The series aired for the final time on September 6, 2013. Lake's return to daytime television was welcomed by critics, who saw her as the possible successor to Oprah