Actress Lela Rochon Recalls Favorite Hollywood Memories With Lucille Ball and Sammy Davis Jr.: 'I Have So Many Stories'

Lela Rochon is a Hollywood legend.

From starring in iconic movies like Waiting to Exhale with Whitney Houston and Angela Bassett, to continuing to take on challenging roles in both television and film, the actress has amassed a wealth of memories while working with Tinseltown's elite.

Rochon speaks exclusively with OK! about her favorite memories from her illustrious career, taking on the challenge of playing Monica White in Lifetime's The Dating App Killer: The Monica White Story, how the industry has changed and what it takes to make it.

As soon as the mother-of-two stepped onto the scene, she started working with icons.

"I have so many stories, but I'll go way back to legendary ones," she says. "Before I even started doing movies, I did a beer campaign for Anheuser-Busch. We had these appearances to make. We did an event on stage with Charlton Heston, Lucille Ball and Sammy Davis Jr. We were held in a green room for about an hour. What was always amazing to me was that I grew up watching I Love Lucy. Lucy was so cute. She was probably in her late eighties at the time, tugging on her little wig. She had the biggest diamonds I'd ever seen in my life. She was so friendly and so nice. She let me put all of her rings on. Sammy was great, too. He was excited. He had just seen Michael Jackson and was talking about how much he loved him and what a great time he had at the show. He had a lot of respect for my friend and me because we were dancers at the time."

While Rochon has played numerous juicy roles, portraying White — who unknowingly dated a suspected serial killer — was a "different" kind of challenge.

"It's always different. But it's always more pressure," she admits. "I've played several real women before. At first, I didn't want to speak with them until we were done, which is bad because you take a screenplay that someone has written about their life, and you try to make it as true to them as possible with what's written. But I've matured out of that — now, I will speak to the person before."

"I spoke to Monica. The thing she told me really helped because the first thing I asked when I saw her was, 'What made her survive? What made her different than the other women? In speaking to her, it was mostly her faith and her spirit. It was listening to that small voice inside you. It's our gut instincts that help us survive in bad situations."

After years of navigating Hollywood, Rochon feels there are more opportunities for actors nowadays.

"The industry has progressed in this way where before, if you were a TV actress, you were locked in a box," she explains. "As a TV actress, you could not do feature films. You could not be seen for movies. Movie stars were movie stars. TV people were TV people. Now, you can be a movie star, you can have a TV series, you can be an influencer and host a podcast. You can do everything. That's beautiful because that's freedom."

While there are more ways for people to achieve success, Rochon emphasizes that it takes hard work and talent to truly make it.

"You do have a lot of people who are famous for nothing," she notes. "There's no talent there. When I see some of these young people with 10 million followers, my question is, 'What do they do?' What's their talent?' Everybody can try it, but not everybody is successful. Movies in particular are very special. I never forget, I had an agent who said to me, 'A movie star is somebody that you can't take your eyes off of.' But it also requires training and dedication."