Carroll, Diahann (Carol Diahann Johnson)

Impact on the world

Became the first Black woman to win a Tony Award for a leading role in a musical for 1962's 'No Strings,' then made television history in 1968 starring as widowed nurse Julia Baker in 'Julia,' the first American television series built around a Black woman who was not portrayed as a domestic servant; production crews on the show's first day could not even provide makeup suited to her skin tone, since studios of the era had only stocked cosmetics for white actresses, and she went on to earn an Academy Award nomination for 1974's 'Claudine' and a decade-long run as the glamorous Dominique Deveraux on the primetime soap opera 'Dynasty' beginning in 1984, becoming American television's first Black female prime-time diva.

Life & background

Born Carol Diahann Johnson in the Bronx in 1935, Carroll began modeling for Ebony magazine at 15 and trained at New York's High School of Music & Art before making her Broadway debut in 1954's 'House of Flowers' and her film debut alongside Dorothy Dandridge the same year in 'Carmen Jones.' She won her Tony for 'No Strings' in 1962, becoming the first Black woman to receive that award in a leading musical category, before her 1968 casting in 'Julia' made her, by her own later description, the face of something American television had never attempted: a successful, professional Black mother whose race was not the central subject of every episode. The show's premise, a widowed nurse working for an aerospace company doctor while raising her young son after her husband's death in Vietnam, drew criticism from some contemporary critics for its relatively gentle treatment of racial realities, even as it provided millions of viewers a sustained, dignified counter-image to decades of domestic-servant roles and directly paved the way for later successful series built around Black leads, including 'The Cosby Show.' She continued working steadily across film, television, and nightclub performance for decades afterward, received an Academy Award nomination for her starring role in 1974's 'Claudine,' and found a second major career peak in 1984 playing Dominique Deveraux on 'Dynasty,' a role explicitly designed to give the prime-time soap opera genre its first Black glamour diva to rival the show's white female leads; she continued performing into her seventies, including a 2006 Broadway run in 'Sunset Boulevard,' before her 2019 death from breast cancer at age 84.

Sources

1. Biography.com; PBS Pioneers of Television; EBSCO Research Starters; Rotten Tomatoes (Major TV Milestones in Black History)