{"id":233522,"date":"2019-10-05T01:30:33","date_gmt":"2019-10-05T05:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=233522"},"modified":"2019-10-05T01:30:33","modified_gmt":"2019-10-05T05:30:33","slug":"diahann-carroll-oscar-nominated-pioneering-actress-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2019\/10\/05\/diahann-carroll-oscar-nominated-pioneering-actress-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Diahann Carroll, Oscar nominated, pioneering actress, dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
FILE: Portrait of Diahann Carroll (Photo By Carl Van Vechten – Library of CongressCatalog\/Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2014 Diahann Carroll, the Oscar-nominated actress and singer who won critical acclaim as the first black woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series as \u201cJulia,\u201d has died. She was 84.<\/p>\n

Carroll’s daughter, Susan Kay, told The Associated Press her mother died Friday in Los Angeles of cancer.<\/p>\n

During her long career, Carroll earned a Tony Award for the musical \u201cNo Strings\u201d and an Academy Award nomination for best actress for \u201cClaudine.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she was perhaps best known for her pioneering work on \u201cJulia.\u201d Carroll played Julia Baker, a nurse whose husband had been killed in Vietnam, in the groundbreaking situation comedy that aired from 1968 to 1971.<\/p>\n

\u201cDiahann Carroll walked this earth for 84 years and broke ground with every footstep. An icon. One of the all-time greats,\u201d director Ava DuVernay wrote on Twitter. \u201cShe blazed trails through dense forests and elegantly left diamonds along the path for the rest of us to follow. Extraordinary life. Thank you, Ms. Carroll.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although she was not the first black woman to star in her own TV show (Ethel Waters played a maid in the 1950s series \u201cBeulah\u201d), she was the first to star as someone other than a servant.<\/p>\n

NBC executives were wary about putting \u201cJulia\u201d on the network during the racial unrest of the 1960s, but it was an immediate hit.<\/p>\n

It had its critics, though, including some who said Carroll’s character, who is the mother of a young son, was not a realistic portrayal of a black American woman in the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey said it was a fantasy,\u201d Carroll recalled in 1998. \u201cAll of this was untrue. Much about the character of Julia I took from my own life, my family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not shy when it came to confronting racial barriers, Carroll won her Tony portraying a high-fashion American model in Paris who has a love affair with a white American author in the 1959 Richard Rodgers musical \u201cNo Strings.\u201d Critic Walter Kerr described her as \u201ca girl with a sweet smile, brilliant dark eyes and a profile regal enough to belong on a coin.\u201d<\/p>\n

She appeared often in plays previously considered exclusive territory for white actresses: \u201cSame Time, Next Year,\u201d \u201cAgnes of God\u201d and \u201cSunset Boulevard\u201d (as faded star Norma Desmond, the role played by Gloria Swanson in the 1950 film.)<\/p>\n

\u201cI like to think that I opened doors for other women, although that wasn’t my original intention,\u201d she said in 2002.<\/p>\n

Her film career was sporadic. She began with a secondary role in \u201cCarmen Jones\u201d in 1954 and five years later appeared in \u201cPorgy and Bess,\u201d although her singing voice was dubbed because it wasn’t considered strong enough for the Gershwin opera. Her other films included \u201cGoodbye Again,\u201d \u201cHurry Sundown,\u201d \u201cParis Blues,\u201d and \u201cThe Split.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 1974 film \u201cClaudine\u201d provided her most memorable role. She played a hard-bitten single mother of six who finds romance in Harlem with a garbage man played by James Earl Jones. Carroll says she got the role after the intended lead actress, Diana Sands, became sick and insisted her friend take the role (Sands died in 1973). But Carroll said those behind the movies did not see her in the role because of her work in Julia and made her audition without makeup.<\/p>\n

\u201cGive me a chance. Just give me the opportunity to show you that I understand,\u201d she recalled telling them in an interview with the National Visionary Leadership Project. \u201cI’m an actress, singer, from New York City, from the streets of New York, and I pride myself on my work … I would like to be given the opportunity to stretch my wings.\u201d<\/p>\n

She would end up being nominated for her Oscar, and she recalled the filming a magical experience.<\/p>\n

\u201cI had such a good time, I almost told them you don’t need to pay me,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

In the 1980s, she joined in the long-running prime-time soap opera \u201cDynasty\u201d as Dominique Deveraux, the glamorous half-sister of Blake Carrington; her physical battles with Alexis Carrington, played by Joan Collins, were among fan highlights. Another memorable role was Marion Gilbert, as the haughty mother of Whitley Gilbert (played by Jasmine Guy) on the TV series \u201cA Different World.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDiahann Carroll you taught us so much. We are stronger, more beautiful and risk takers because of you. We will forever sing your praises and speak your name. Love Love Love, Debbie,\u201d wrote actress, dancer and director Debbie Allen, who was a producer on \u201cA Different World.\u201d<\/p>\n

More recently, she had a number of guest shots and small roles in TV series, including playing the mother of Isaiah Washington’s character, Dr. Preston Burke, on \u201cGrey’s Anatomy\u201d and a stretch on the TV show \u201cWhite Collar\u201d as the widow June.<\/p>\n

She also returned to her roots in nightclubs. In 2006, she made her first club appearance in New York in four decades, singing at Feinstein’s at the Regency. Reviewing a return engagement in 2007, a New York Times critic wrote that she sang \u201cBoth Sides Now\u201d with \u201cthe reflective tone of a woman who has survived many severe storms and remembers every lightning flash and thunderclap.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carol Diann Johnson was born in New York City and attended the High School for the Performing Arts. Her father was a subway conductor and her mother a homemaker. She recalls when she was around 3 or 4, her parents took her to an aunt in North Carolina and left her in the care of her aunt, without notice, for a year She said it took a long time to forgive her parents, though she eventually did, and was there for them in their later years.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt happened, it’s over, it’s done. A mature person finds a way to let go of that,\u201d she told OWN’s \u201cMasterclass in an interview a few years ago. \u201cThey did a lot of wonderful things. They lived, gave me everything they possibly could, and they passed on.\u201d<\/p>\n

She began her career as a model in a segregated industry; she got much of her work due to publications like the black magazine Ebony. A prize from \u201cArthur Godfrey’s Talent Scouts\u201d TV show led to nightclub engagements.<\/p>\n

In her 1998 memoir \u201cDiahann,\u201d Carroll traced her turbulent romantic life, which included liaisons with Harry Belafonte, Duke Ellington, Miles Davis, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier and David Frost. She even became engaged to Frost, but the engagement was cancelled.<\/p>\n

An early marriage to nightclub owner Monte Kay resulted in Carroll’s only child, Suzanne, as well as a divorce. She also divorced her second husband, retail executive Freddie Glusman, later marrying magazine editor Robert DeLeon, who died.<\/p>\n

Her most celebrated marriage was in 1987, to singer Vic Damone, and the two appeared together in nightclubs. But they separated in 1991 and divorced several years later.<\/p>\n

After she was treated for breast cancer in 1998, she spoke out for more money for research and for free screening for women who couldn’t afford mammograms.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all look forward to the day that mastectomies, chemotherapy and radiation are considered barbaric,\u201d Carroll told a gathering in 2000.<\/p>\n

Besides her daughter, she is survived by grandchildren August and Sydney.<\/p>\n

\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n

Bob Thomas, a long-time and now deceased staffer of the Associated Press, was the principal writer of this obituary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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