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...!