Carroll reflects on a career of first on stage and screen

WASHINGTON » Diahann Carroll, at 81, welcomed a visitor to her “fabulous” suite at Washington’s Willard Intercontinental Hotel.

She is glamorous in that old Hollywood way but also kind, first asking about you.

Carroll mentioned that she was celebrating a birthday in a few days but laughed at herself when she couldn’t remember quite how old she will be. “Aging,” she said, tossing her honey-colored hair, “is a fulltime job.”

As a young woman and into her middle years, Carroll had a career of firsts. The first black actress to win a Tony, for the 1962 musical “No Strings,” in which her fashion-model character was involved in an interracial romance. The star of “Julia,” the first sitcom centered on a black character who was not a servant — she played a widowed nurse and mother — for which she won a 1969 Golden Globe and was the first black actress nominated for a comedic-lead Emmy.

Then in 1984 came a star turn on “Dynasty” as Dominique Deveraux, an elegant songstress and businesswoman whom Carroll declared at the time would be television’s “first black bitch.” She instructed the prime-time soap’s writers to “just pretend that I’m a white male ... and write the character from there.” And there, yet another breakthrough, America getting to watch a black woman complaining about the off-brand caviar she had been served.

She left the show in 1987, in her early 50s. And then? Well, you know how it goes for an actress. The juicy roles dry up. The interest wanes. For her part, Carroll is in the period of life when one reflects on legacy.

Her mission in Washington was to promote a new documentary film project, “Sullivision: Ed Sullivan and the Struggle for Civil Rights,” a look at the legendary midcentury variety show host and the groundbreaking African-American artists who shared his stage at a time when images of