Diahann Carroll, and actress, no more

DIAHANN CARROLL,

the Oscarnominated actress and singer who won critical acclaim as the first black woman to star in a non-servant role in a TV series as Julia, has died. She was 84.

Carroll’s daughter, Susan Kay, told her mother died on Friday in Los Angeles of cancer.

During her long career, Carroll earned a Tony Award for the musical No Strings and an Academy Award nomination for best actress for Claudine.

But she was perhaps best known for her pioneering work on Julia. Carroll played Julia Baker, a nurse, in the groundbreaking situation comedy that aired from 1968 to 1971.

“Diahann Carroll walked this earth for 84 years and broke ground with every footstep. An icon. One of the all-time greats,” director Ava Duvernay wrote on Twitter. “She 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.”

Although she was not the first black woman to star in her own TV show (Ethel Waters played a maid in the 1950s series Beulah), she was the first to star as someone other than a servant. NBC executives were wary about putting Julia on the network during the racial unrest of the 1960s, but it was an immediate hit. 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 No Strings. Critic Walter Kerr described her as “a girl with a sweet smile, brilliant dark eyes and a profile regal enough to belong on a coin.”

She appeared often in plays previously considered exclusive territory for white actresses. “I like to think that I opened doors for other women, although that wasn’t my original intention,” she said in 2002.

Movie career

Her film career was sporadic. She began with a secondary role in Carmen Jones in 1954 and five years later appeared in Porgy and Bess. Her other films included Goodbye Again, Hurry Sundown, Paris Blues, and The Split. The 1974 film Claudine

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 lead actress, Diana Sands, became sick (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.

“Give me a chance. Just give me the opportunity to show you that I understand,” she recalled telling them. “I’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.” She ended up being nominated for an Oscar.

Tv roles

On of her memorable TV roles was that of Marion Gilbert, the haughty mother of Whitley Gilbert on the TV series A Different World.

“Diahann 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,” wrote Debbie

Allen, producer of

Different World.

More recently, she had a number of small roles in TV series, including Grey’s Anatomy and

White Collar. She also returned to her roots in nightclubs.

Besides her daughter, Diahnn is survived by grandchildren August and Sydney.

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