Fond Farewell: Diahann Carroll 1935-2019

The other day, on October 4th, the entertainment world lost a longtime singer and actress who managed to mark a few firsts in the business and, as a result, helped make it a little bit easier for those who came after. Her career spanned at least six decades as she reached for the heights in several categories, sometimes scaling them. We refer to Miss Diahann Carroll and today pay tribute to her legacy on stage and screen.

Carol Diahann Johnson was born on July 17th, 1935 in the Bronx, New York (but was raised in Harlem.) Her parents (a subway conductor and a nurse) lent great support to their daughter's interest in music, dance and modeling and she won a scholarship from the Metropolitan Opera to New York's High School of Music and Art. As a teen, she entered and won (for three weeks running) a contest on the radio show Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, which led to further competitions, nightclub appearances and in time, an ingenue role on Broadway!

Nineteen year-old Diahann Carroll (as she was known from her first appearance on Arthur Godfrey) was cast in her first film in 1954. It was a colorful supporting part in Otto Preminger's Carmen Jones, an all-black updating of the opera Carmen, which starred Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge and Pearl Bailey. She next was handed a plum role in Broadway's House of Flowers, a Harold Arlen-Truman Capote musical starring Bailey. Though the show only lasted five months, she won great reviews and introduced two songs, including "A Sleepin' Bee."

Carroll risked the security of her family life when she wed Jewish record producer Monte Kay in 1956 (her father declined to attend the nuptials.) The first of four marriages, this one lasted until 1960. Carroll's personal life would always be more contentious and troubled than her career.

Having appeared on various TV variety shows as a vocalist and with an occasional acting gig, Carroll was cast in another all-black musical, this time Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1959), which was to be directed by Rouben Mamoulian until he was fired and replaced by Carmen's director Otto Preminger. Despite her vocal talent, she was dubbed by a full-on opera singer, as were costars Sidney Poitier and Dorothy Dandridge. The highly-troubled production was generally an unhappy one with the cast at odds with the subject matter, the director unhappy with the production decisions of the earlier helmsman and threats of boycott and even arson from groups who disapproved of the project. Despite all this, the movie was deemed worthy in several areas (winning an Oscar for its score and receiving three other nominations and taking the Golden Globe for Best Picture - Musical or Comedy), but the Gershwin estate was very displeased with the end result and it has not been shown on TV since the very early-1970s and has never received a home video release of any kind. It's considered a "lost film" at this point.

In 1961, Carroll and Poitier were teamed up in Paris Blues, which also starred Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward, all about the romances of two musicians in the city of love. And love was also in the air for Carroll and Poitier by this time. Having grown attracted to one another during Porgy, they had an affair which ended, but then reignited here.

They had vowed to leave their spouses for one another and she divorced her husband Kay (with whom she now had a baby daughter), but Poitier did not follow through with his own divorce, remaining wed to his wife Juanita until 1965. Then he wanted to live with Carroll, but without her daughter present, which she refused to do. They continued their fractured romance for a few years, but ultimately split in the late-'60s.

Carroll had something more momentous on her plate by 1962 anyway, which was the Richard Rogers' Broadway musical No Strings, which the composer (now alone in the wake of Oscar Hammerstein's death) wrote just for her. Costarring Richard Kiley, the story of a romance between a fashion model and a writer was progressive not because of its book (which ignored the race issue), but because of its casting. Carroll took home the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, the first time a black woman had done so.

Carroll had become an elegant guest star on various variety series, singing lush songs while decked out in glamorous evening gowns. She appeared multiple times on The Garry Moore Show and The Tonight Show with Jack Paar and also teamed up with the star of The Judy Garland Show, dueting with the movie legend on songs by Richard Rogers and Harold Arlen.

Barbara Streisand isn't the only songbird who got to sit opposite Garland and sing her heart out on TV with the movie legend.

Not contend merely to sing, Carroll also acted dramatic parts on television and received an Emmy nomination for this 1962 episode of Naked City, in which she played the teacher of a nearly blind boy who tries to champion his independence as he's accidentally separated from his class and left to fend for himself on the streets. Kim Stanley took home the statuette for a guest role on Ben Casey, but it was still a nice step in Carroll's career.

A smashing-looking Carroll added glitz and talent to any television appearance.

In 1967, Otto Preminger came calling once again, this time for the (over)heated southern melodrama Hurry Sundown, in which Carroll played a schoolteacher who returns home after living in the north and has to face all the old prejudices that are still rampant in her hometown. Here she follows Jane Fonda into a "whites only" ladies room to confront her about lies she has told in court. The all-star flick was no box office hit, but remains a fascinating viewing experience.

She had a decorative role in The Split (1968) opposite football-hero-turned-actor Jim Brown. The tough heist-gone-wrong movie boasted a great cast of character actors with no less than Julie Harris leading the way.

Trim, attractive Carroll had something else on the horizon, though. She was approached to break through another glass ceiling, this time as the first black female to star in a television series who wasn't portrayed as a domestic .

The series Julia had Carroll portraying a widowed mother and nurse (shown here with Lurene Tuttle and Lloyd Nolan.) The gentle comedy initially aired without a laugh track, but one was crudely added in reruns. In a typical "damned if you do, damned if you don't" scenario, the series was panned by many black viewers even as it was breaking new ground. Carroll's character's situation was deemed by many to be too idealized and out of touch with the reality that many black viewers were facing. (Even Carroll referred to her role at one point as a "white negro.")

Still, the series was a positive step for quite a few people who longed for a different type of life than they currently knew. It was something to aspire to that might be realized (a situation not unlike the one The Cosby Show later presented.) Carroll won a Golden Globe and was the first black woman to be nominated for an Emmy in the category Outstanding Continued Role by a Leading Actress in a Comedy Series (which went to Hope Lange for The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.) After three seasons, Carroll, seen here with her on-screen son Marc Copage, opted to end the series and move on to other things.

Carroll hadn't turned her back on singing and in 1969 hosted the glamorous variety show Hollywood Palace. Seen here with Stevie Wonder, I don't think I need to elaborate on how I feel about Carroll's wondrously gargantuan 'do!

Prior to and during the run of Julia, Carroll had been invited to present at the Oscars and always made an impression. Little did she know at the time that within a couple of years she would find herself a nominee!

She had also found love again, or so she believed, this time with British media figure nad interviewer David Frost. The two dated from 1970-1973, became engaged, and were a favorite target of the paparazzi.

Suddenly, however, the two split up and a week later Carroll married department store owner Fredde Glusman, who she'd met while purchasing a swimsuit! The ill-advised union only lasted a couple of months and fell apart amid claims of physical abuse.

Rising actress Diana Sands (who had played Carroll's cousin four times on Julia) was set to star in a seriocomic film called Claudine (1974) but was stricken with cancer. Unable to complete the part, she recommended her friend Carroll for it who dove at the chance to play a Harlem mother of six on welfare, but working under the table as a domestic, to make ends meet. At last she was playing a character that many inner-city black audience members could truly respond to and for her trouble she was nominated for the Oscar. Ellen Burstyn won that year for Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore, but Carroll was still finding ways to blaze trails and tear down barriers.

Carroll also dove into another marriage, this time to Robert DeLeon, the publisher of Jet magazine. The two had met when he was personally penning a cover story on her Oscar nomination for his publication. The stormy marriage was something of a roller coaster ride and DeLeon's drinking increased (as did his debt) and it all came to a sudden halt when he was killed in an automobile accident in 1977.

In 1977, Carroll went on tour with Cleavon Little (of Blazing Saddles, 1974, fame) in a re-cast production of Same Time, Next Year, which had initially starred Carol Burnett and Dick Van Dyke on Broadway.

Carroll entered camp history when she (along with Bea Arthur, Art Carney, Harvey Korman and others) appeared in the infamous 1978 The Star Wars Holiday Special, a cash-in TV spectacular that creator George Lucas ultimately disavowed from the famous movie series' canon.

In 1982 and 1983, Carroll made a temporary return to Broadway to take over for Elizabeth Ashley in Agnes of God, first for her vacation and then to assume the role. But she was about to take part in still another first...! Since the prime-time soap opera Dallas had made its debut in 1978, the genre had begun a steady climb in notoriety (and ratings!) with Knots Landing, Falcon Crest and Dynasty all riding the wave. Carroll determined that what was missing from these shows was TV's first "black bitch."

Amid a tidal wave of publicity and with the assistance of producer Aaron Spelling, she joined the cast of then-hot Dynasty as mystery woman Dominique Deveraux. The lounge singer with a cupboard full of skeletons in her closet burst onto the scene (with Carroll's old high school chum Billy Dee Williams making a few appearances as her husband.)

Ultimately determined to be Blake Carrington's half-sister, she was now a firm fixture on the show and for a time there were three gowned and bejeweled divas on the show. She was related by marriage to Linda Evans' Krystle and swiftly became a sworn enemy of Joan Collins' Alexis (though in real life, Carroll and Alexis were good friends.) She and Collins took part in one of the show's iconic catfights, clawing at each other over an article Alexis' paper had printed about Dominique.

For a little while, Carroll was indeed a severe piece of work who did put Collins in her place, but before long she became a more conventional soap opera heroine than any sort of bad girl. (And from the looks of things, sometimes wore wigs that closely resembled those of La Collins!) She timed the release of her autobiography "Diahann" perfectly so that it came out in 1986 near the height of Dynasty mania.

In 1985 when The Colbys came along, it was Carroll who made the most trips between the series, with a rekindled romance between Ken Howard and her a major story point. Few of the other Dynasty performers were willing to appear on the spin-off, but Carroll filmed seven installments (and was able to reclaim some of her imperiousness as the demanding head of a record label.) The shows also allowed her to sing occasionally.

In 1987, Carroll wed for a fourth and final time. On paper, it seemed perfect that the glamorous vocalist Carroll should wind up with smooth crooner Vic Damone and the two did perform together on stage for a time, but it was never a very secure marriage. Damone felt that Carroll was demanding on stage and off, though they did stick it out for a dozen years. Carroll was rather unceremoniously let go from Dynasty in 1987 as part of a budget cutback. There were plans to bring her back for the tenth season that wound up not to be.

If Damone thought he was married to a diva, she was about to show the world that she could also play one of the biggest on stage as well. In 1995, she joined Rex Smith for a Canadian production of Sunset Boulevard, in which she portrayed demanding (and a bit demented) silent screen actress Norma Desmond.She received generally favorable reviews with critics noting that her singing ability exceeded some Norma's who had relied more heavily on their acting.

Carroll continued to act - and to win accolades for her acting. She received a third Emmy nomination for a 1988 guest role on A Different World (losing to Colleen Dewhurst on Murphy Brown.) A fourth and final Emmy nomination came with a 2007 guest role on Grey's Anatomy as Isaiah Washington's mother. (Cynthia Nixon won that year for a stint on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.)

She also worked on 25 episodes of the Matt Bomer series White Collar, as seen here, over a five-year span. Ms. Carroll had also unveiled a successful line of wigs and often sported these creations at various public events and in interviews.

Carroll, who had faced down a bout with breast cancer in 1997 and won, was now one of the entertainment legends. She continued to act occasionally through 2016, but much of her time was spent being honored for he career strides and being interviewed for her take on the events of her six-decade career. She was eighty-four when complications from further cancer claimed her on October 4th, 2019.

We salute the talented and dynamic Miss Diahann Carroll, who found a way to pave new ground without ever intentionally doing so. She was once quoted as having said, "I like to think I opened doors for other women, although that wasn't my original intention" and "All I ever wanted to do was sing. What happened was more." We'd venture to say much more...!

Focusing on Material Things

Nearly five years ago (yes, Poseidon's Underworld's fifth birthday is just around the corner on August 24th!) one of my very first posts concerned the gossamer dress that Faye Dunaway wore in The Towering Inferno (1974.) For, literally, forty years, I have been obsessed with her in that dress! I just never got over my love for the layers of chiffon blowing and billowing in the windy conditions of the top of The Glass Tower. Today, I'm going to toss out a few more pictures of her in the gown along with some other gowns and negligees that have caught my eye in the meantime.

The cast of Inferno was stellar and sprawling (though in retrospect, the presence of O.J. Simpson in a key supporting role grates a bit.) Some of the cast had to practically fight for attention against the fiery pyrotechnics (costar Paul Newman announced that the star of the picture was "that damn fire") and a few (like Robert Vaughn in an almost blink-and-you'll-miss-it role) lost out. Dunaway at least, despite some severe editing and few lines to deliver, still made an impression with her dramatic looks.

At times she seemed to be floating around rather than merely walking.

Just take a look at her incredible chin line in this photo with Newman.

By the time they start knocking windows out and taking ladies up to the rooftop, the dress is getting quite a workout.

Later, a bedraggled Dunaway shared a memorable clinch with her man before entering the uncertainty of a disabled glass elevator.

Her skull-like visage on the way down seems to foreshadow that it may not be an exactly uneventful ride...

Several years prior to Inferno, Dunaway had enjoyed a successful role in The Thomas Crown Affair (1968) opposite Inferno's other male lead Steve McQueen and in a dress of vaguely similar material and color (if not length.)

Things came full circle in a way when, in 1998, Dunaway arrived at the 70th annual Oscar ceremony wearing a beautiful taupe chiffon concoction that seemed as if it was tailor-made to make my night! We don't want to discuss the sounds I made when she appeared on the red carpet...

On the arm of her handsome son, Liam, she was there as part of the first "Oscar's Family Album," in which a passel of stars were collected and arranged on stage for a commemoration. That night, her hair and clothing all just "worked," something that hasn't always been the case in years since.

If my love of chiffon was born in a movie theater in 1974, it was solidified a couple of years later when The Poseidon Adventure (1972) was shown on TV for the first time and I saw more of it, this time underwater (and trust me, in Shelley Winters' case there was plenty!!  LOL)

When I was a tyke, over-the-top chiffon dresses like this one enveloping Dolores Del Rio were eye-boggling objects of fascination and fantasy.

Later, I found that I appreciated simpler, sleeker styles (such as the one Suzy Parker is modeling here) as much or more as the cotton candy confections.

Here, we glimpse Marilyn Maxwell gauzing it up.

Merle Oberon offers us some sheer brilliance.

Maureen O'Sullivan provides waves of wonder.

Bette Davis takes a break from the heavier, darker gowns that she typically favored in order to show off this lighter creation.

This is an uncharacteristically slinky portrait of Greer Garson, who more often leaned towards covered-up ensembles with little skin showing.

Kathryn Grayson unveils a bedazzled number in this scene from The Desert Song (1953.)

This shot wouldn't have been out of place in my tribute to headpieces a couple of years back!

Miss Marilyn Monroe allows her legs to play peek-a-boo.

Inger Stevens poses with a billowing scarf in front of a fan.

I dearly love (for reasons which ought to be obvious!) this shot of Miss Lana Turner from The Rains of Ranchipur (1955.)

Chiffon in motion is provided by Kim Novak (with costar Jeff Chandler) in 1957's Jeanne Eagels.

How could I not love Marlene Dietrich practically catering to my fantasies in wafting chiffon?

Even better in black and wind-blown!

Bewitched's Elizabeth Montgomery is irresistible in this satin, chiffon and feathered lingerie ensemble.

Carroll Baker slinked around in a succession of movies from The Carpetbaggers (1964) to Sylvia (1965, seen here) to Harlow (also 1965.)

Yugoslavian actress Sylva Koscina twists and twirls a sheer negligee.

Sophia Loren almost distracts us from the fact that her sleeves are chiffon in this photo from Arabesque (1966.)

Sharon Tate models a dress for Valley of the Dolls (1967) that didn't wind up making it into the finished picture.

I don't believe this one made the grade either, but it's been a while since I've headed to the Valley.

Another life-changing moment came in The Ambushers (1967) when I was confronted with the triple-whammy of Senta Berger in patterned chiffon, oversized earrings (possibly the understatement of the century!) and an up 'do. Do yourself a favor and check her out in this if you ever get the chance!

A rapturously beautiful Stella Stevens radiates in a Moss Mabry gown from 1968's How to Save a Marraige and Ruin Your Life.

1977's Fun with Dick and Jane featured Jane Fonda in a deliberately overdone chiffon creation.

Years earlier, Miss Jane had posed under a bolt of chiffon with little or nothing else!

In 1978, Fonda costarred in California Suite, but this time it was Maggie Smith who was swathed in layers of floating chiffon.

Playing an actress fretfully facing down a night at the Oscars (and a husband, Michael Caine, with an eye for the boys), Smith herself needn't have worried. She won an Oscar herself for playing an Oscar candidate!

We now segue into The Diahann Carroll Wing for a quartet of pictures featuring her in various flowing gowns. First, she works this white number against an industrial setting.

Next we see her draping one of her dresses for a publicity shot.

She's gone all tropical for this hooty portrait.

Finally, in front of something that could only have occurred in the '70s, she belts out a number while decked out in layers of chiffon.

From there we enter The Joan Crawford Wing. Joan shows off a sizable train of bejeweled chiffon in this shot.

In this one, she lets her figure take center stage underneath the glitz.

A few years later, she is still utilizing the softly draping fabric to enhance a publicity portrait.

1949's Flamingo Road has her working as a cooch dancer in a carnival (and demonstrating the leg line that would become legendarily amusing in Torch Song a couple of years later in 1953.)

She was still working the chiffon in the late-1950s such as when she picked up this bolt of it and began to pose for some photos during an interview/shoot.

Then there is a nemesis of Joan's, Loretta Young, who dearly loved to gussy up in all sorts of frills, folds, ruffles and drapes, with chiffon part of the picture in several cases.

I'm not exactly a huge fan of Young's though I could never truly dislike anyone who had so much fun whirling in to host her popular television series The Loretta Young Show (1953-1961) decked out in one gown after another (many designed by Jean Louis, who she married in later life!)

I find that I especially like her in her middle-to-later years when an elegant serenity seemed to land over each photograph.

One can almost see her taking on the Jennifer Jones part in Inferno, had Jones opted not to take the role. Young hadn't made a film in twenty years by that time, though, and had exited the small screen a decade before as well, making a surprise return in the mid-to-late-'80s with two TV movies.

Probably my second favorite dress in this category after Faye's is the blue chiffon one that Grace Kelly wears in To Catch a Thief (1955.) Designed by Edith Head, the color perfectly compliments Kelly's coloring and gives her a regal air even before she became a princess in real life.

Just as lovely is the while sleeveless one she wears in the same movie, which is pitched to showcase the amazing jewelry around her neck, yet still has a wonderfully flowing bottom.

Also, I can't forget Capucine in Walk on the Wild Side (1960), whose goddess-y look seems to have inspired Towering Inferno designer Paul Zastupnevich when it came to Faye Dunaway.

Capucine's dress was by Pierre Balmain and she had modeled for him previously such as in this vintage shot with fabric flowing.

We don't see that much chiffon these days outside of bridesmaids' dresses. Sadly, most weddings don't have an accompanying wind machine to really play up the look properly...

Sometimes in a celebrity fashion show we'll get a welcome shot of some chiffon such as this occasion when our girl Joan Collins made her presence known on the runway.

(Of course Joan is sort of recalling Audrey Hepburn's triumphal gestures from 1957's Funny Face, but if you're gonna steal, steal from the best, right?!)

All any starlet has to do to get on my good side is show up at an awards ceremony with tall hair and a flowy gown! I still recall this glimpse of Kate Beckinsale years ago at the SAG Awards before I really even knew who she was.

I saved these last two photos for the end because they combine a couple of my favorite things: Ava Gardner and billowing fabric. From publicity for the 1956 film Bhowani Junction, the first one is lovely...

...but the second one is close to a culmination of all things I hold holy in the world! I have no words for how much I adore this shot of Miss Gardner! Thanks for walking down fetish lane with me this time out! Today is my own birthday, so this post is a sort of present to myself. :-) I'll be back soon. For now, I'm off to a convention for work that lasts for a few days.