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Diahann Carroll
Carroll on March 14, 1955 (age 19) Photographed by Carl Van Vechten.[1]
Born	Carol Diahann Johnson (1935-07-17) July 17, 1935 (age 83) New York City, U.S.
Education	Music & Art High School
Alma mater	New York University
Occupation	Actress singer model
Years active	1950–present
Spouse(s)	Monte Kay (m. 1956; div. 1963) Fredde Glusman (m. 1973; div. 1973) Robert DeLeon (m. 1975; died 1977) Vic Damone (m. 1987; div. 1996)
Partner(s)	David Frost (1970–1973)
Children	1
Awards	1962 Tony Award-Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical – No Strings 1969 Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star – Julia
Website	diahanncarroll.net

Diahann Carroll (/daɪˈæn/; born Carol Diahann Johnson, July 17, 1935) is an American actress, singer and model. She rose to stardom in performances in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones in 1954 and Porgy and Bess in 1959. In 1962, Carroll won a Tony Award for best actress, a first for a black woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings.

Her 1968 debut in Julia, the first series on American television to star a black woman in a nonstereotypical role, was a milestone both in her career and the medium. In the 1980s she played the role of a mixed-race diva in the primetime soap opera Dynasty.

Carroll is the recipient of numerous stage and screen nominations and awards, including the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress In A Television Series" in 1968. She received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for the 1974 film Claudine. A breast cancer survivor and activist, Carroll was scheduled to return to the Broadway stage in the 2014 revival of A Raisin in the Sun as Mama, but withdrew prior to opening citing the demands of the rehearsal and performance schedule.^[2]

Early years

Carroll was born in the Bronx, New York, to John Johnson, of Aiken, South Carolina, and Mabel (Faulk),^[3] of Bladenboro, North Carolina. When Carroll was an infant, the family moved to Harlem, where she grew up. She attended Music and Art High School, and was a classmate of Billy Dee Williams. In many interviews about her childhood, Diahann Carroll recalls her parents' support, enrolling her in dance, singing, and modeling classes. By the time Carroll was 15, she was modeling for Ebony. After graduating from high school, she attended New York University, majoring in sociology.

Career

Carroll got her big break at 18, when she appeared as a contestant on the Dumont Television Network program, Chance of a Lifetime, hosted by Dennis James. On the show which aired January 8, 1954, she took the $1,000 top prize for a rendition of the Jerome Kern/Oscar Hammerstein song, "Why Was I Born?" She went on to win the following four weeks. Engagements at Manhattan's Café Society and Latin Quarter nightclubs soon followed.^[4]

Carroll's film debut was a supporting role in Carmen Jones (1954) as a wholesome country-bred rival to the sultry lead character played by Dorothy Dandridge. That same year, she starred in the Broadway musical, House of Flowers. In 1959, she played Clara in the film version of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess, but her character's singing parts were dubbed by opera singer Loulie Jean Norman. She made a guest appearance in the series Peter Gunn, in the 1960 episode "Sing a Song of Murder". She starred with Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward in the 1961 film Paris Blues. In 1962, Carroll won the Tony Award for best actress (a first for a black woman) for the role of Barbara Woodruff in the Samuel A. Taylor and Richard Rodgers musical No Strings. In 1974, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for the film Claudine.

Carroll and Sammy Davis Jr. on The Hollywood Palace, 1968

Carroll is well known for her title role in the 1968 television series Julia, which made her the first African American actress to star in her own television series where she did not play a domestic worker. That role won her the Golden Globe Award for "Best Actress In A Television Series" in 1968,^[5] and a nomination for an Emmy Award in 1969. Some of her earlier work also included appearances on shows hosted by Jack Paar, Merv Griffin, Johnny Carson, Judy Garland, and Ed Sullivan, and on The Hollywood Palace variety show. In 1984, Carroll joined the nighttime soap opera Dynasty as the mixed-race jet set diva Dominique Deveraux, half-sister of Blake Carrington. Her high-profile role on Dynasty also reunited her with schoolmate Billy Dee Williams, who briefly played her onscreen husband Brady Lloyd. Carroll remained on the show until 1987, simultaneously making several appearances on its short-lived spin-off, The Colbys. She received her third Emmy nomination in 1989 for the recurring role of Marion Gilbert in A Different World.

In 1991, Carroll played the role of Eleanor Potter, the wife of Jimmy Potter, portrayed by Chuck Patterson, in The Five Heartbeats, a musical drama film in which Jimmy manages a vocal group. In this role, Carroll was a doting, concerned, and protective wife alongside actor and musician Robert Townsend, Michael Wright, and others. In a 1995 reunion with Billy Dee Williams in Lonesome Dove: The Series, she played Mrs. Greyson, the wife of Williams' character. In 1996, Carroll starred as the self-loving and deluded silent movie star Norma Desmond in the Canadian production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of the classic film Sunset Boulevard. In 2001, Carroll made her animation début in The Legend of Tarzan, in which she voiced Queen La, an evil sorceress and ruler of the ancient city of Opar.

In 2006, she appeared in the television medical drama Grey's Anatomy as Jane Burke, the demanding mother of Dr. Preston Burke. In December 2008, Carroll was cast in USA Network's series White Collar as June, the savvy widow who rents out her guest room to Neal Caffrey.^[6] In 2010, Carroll was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docudrama entitled, 1 a Minute, and she appeared as Nana in two Lifetime movies: At Risk and The Front, movie adaptations of two Patricia Cornwell novels.^[7]

Carroll was present on stage for the 2013 Emmy Awards, to briefly speak about being the first African American nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. She was quoted as saying, "talented Kerry Washington better win!" Washington erroneously stated that Carroll was the first black performer ever to be nominated for an Emmy. Actually, at least three black performers were nominated before Carroll, who was first nominated in 1963.^[8] These performers include: Ethel Waters for a guest appearance on Route 66, in 1962; Harry Belafonte, nominated in 1956 and 1961 and winning in 1960; and Sammy Davis Jr., who was nominated in 1956 with Belafonte.

Personal life

Carroll has been married four times, first to record producer Monte Kay in 1956. Her father boycotted the wedding ceremony, presided by Adam Clayton Powell Jr. at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem. The marriage ended in 1962.^[9] The union produced a daughter, Suzanne Kay Bamford (born September 9, 1960), who became a freelance media journalist. In 1959, Carroll began a nine-year affair with married actor Sidney Poitier. She claims that Poitier persuaded her to divorce her husband and he would leave his wife to be with her. When Carroll got her divorce, Poitier didn't keep up his end of the bargain,^[10] yet the relationship continued until 1968. Carroll dated and was engaged to British television host and producer David Frost from 1970 until 1973. In 1973, Carroll surprised the press by marrying Las Vegas boutique owner Fred Glusman. Several weeks later, she filed for divorce, charging Glusman with physical abuse. In 1975, Carroll married Robert DeLeon, a managing editor of Jet. She was widowed two years later when DeLeon was killed in a car crash.^[11] Carroll's fourth marriage was to singer Vic Damone in 1987. The union, which Carroll admitted was turbulent, had a legal separation in 1991, reconciliation, and divorce in 1996.^[12][13]

Carroll was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1997. She says the diagnosis "stunned" her because there was no family history of breast cancer and she had always had a healthy lifestyle. She underwent nine weeks of radiation therapy, and has been clear since. She frequently speaks on the need for early detection and prevention of the disease.^[14]

Charitable work

Carroll was a founding member of the Celebrity Action Council, a volunteer group of celebrity women who served the women's outreach of the Los Angeles Mission,^[15] working with women in rehabilitation from problems with drugs, alcohol or prostitution. She helped to form the group along with other female television personalities including Mary Frann, Donna Mills, Linda Gray and Joan Van Ark.^[16]

Work

Television

Theater

• 
  House of Flowers (1954)


• 
  No Strings (1962)


• 
  Same Time, Next Year (1977)


• 
  Black Broadway (1979) (benefit concert)


• 
  Agnes of God (1983) (replacement for Elizabeth Ashley)


• 
  Love Letters (1990)


• 
  Sunset Boulevard (1995)


• 
  Bubbling Brown Sugar (2004)


• 
  On Golden Pond (2004) (replaced by Leslie Uggams before opening)


• 
  A Raisin in the Sun (2014) (replaced by LaTanya Richardson before opening)

Awards and nominations

Awards

• 1962 Tony Award-Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical No Strings
  


• 1969 Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star – Female – Julia
  


• 2011 Inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame
  

Nominations

• 1963 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role – Naked City^[8]
  


• 1969 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series – Julia^[8]
  


• 1970 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical Television Series – Julia
  


• 1975 Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical Motion Picture – Claudine
  


• 1975 Academy Award for Best Actress – Claudine
  


• 1989 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series – A Different World
  


• 1992 Women in Film Crystal Award.^[18]
  


• 1998 Women in Film Lucy Award^[18]
  


• 1999 Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance in a Children's Special/Series – The Sweetest Gift
  


• 2000 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Mini-Series/Television Movie – Having a Say: The Delany Sisters' 1st 100 Years
  


• 2005 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Television Drama Series – Soul Food
  


• 2008 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series – Grey's Anatomy
  

References

Further reading

• 
  Carroll, Diahann (2009). The legs are the last to go : aging, acting, marrying, mothering, and other things I learned along the way. New York: HarperPaperbacks. ISBN 9780060763275.
  


• 
  Firestone, Diahann Carroll with Ross (1987). Diahann : an autobiography (1st Ivy Books ed.). New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0804101310.
  


• 
  Plowden, Martha Ward (2002). Famous firsts of Black women. Illustrated by Ronald Jones (2nd ed.). Gretna, La.: Pelican Pub. Co. ISBN 9781565541979.
  

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Diahann Carroll.

• 
  Diahann Carroll at the Internet Broadway Database
  


• 
  Diahann Carroll at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
  


• 
  Diahann Carroll on IMDb


• 
  Diahann Carroll at the TCM Movie Database
  


• 
  The HistoryMakers Biography


• Diahann Carroll at Discogs


• 
  Diahann Carroll's oral history video excerpts at The National Visionary Leadership Project


• 
  Diahann Carroll Video produced by Makers: Women Who Make America
  


• 
  Diahann Carroll at The Interviews: An Oral History of Television