I'm so saddened to hear of Diahann Carroll's passing today. I remember her best as Julia, the original "single mother" (a widow) trying to raise her son while working as a nurse. It was such a heart warming show.
RIP to a very classy lady.
shareSo sad to hear about this. I've always enjoyed her - as a singer, as an actress, as an interviewee. I was just playing her 'Sunset Boulevard' cast recording from 1995 this morning before I heard the news.
shareSame here. She worked next to a real pro in Lloyd Nolan and the show successfully ignored racial issues, from what I recall. And a genuinely beautiful woman.
shareSorry to hear that. She was one of the true beauties of show biz.
When we were kids, we never missed 'Julia'. All the girls were crazy about her little boy on the show, Cory.
Speaking of racial issues, I think it was only addressed in the first episode. Julia was on the phone with the doctor who would be her employer, played by Lloyd Nolan. She said to him, "I just want you to know that I'm colored."
He answered gruffly, "WHAT color?" as in "so what".
And that was the end of that.
Sad news -- like many, I'm sure, I remember her best from Dynasty. A classy lady indeed. I didn't actually realise she was as old as she was. R.I.P.
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Like Lena Horne, there was a definite coldness to her - I'm sure she endured a lot of racism and sexism, but she was
classy, beautiful and talented. She was very accomplished, but she should've been a bigger star.
i remember it as well. it was good.
shareA lot of her obits credit her with being a 'trailblazer' on television - with her roles as a professional (not a servant) on 'Julia' and 'the first Black rich bitch' (Carroll's own description) on 'Dynasty'.
Many are forgetting she also was a trailblazer on the musical stage, as she recalled in her 2008 memoir. Starring as 'Norma Desmond' in 'Sunset Boulevard' in 1995 made her the first Black actress to take on a role which was always thought of as a white character - after all, there were no black actresses in the silent screen era (as she pointed out in the memoir). She felt resistance by some when she first auditioned (she first auditioned for the LA cast when Close was leaving, but lost out to Dunaway), including Andrew Lloyd Webber who never took a 'liking' to her (as she claimed), but impressed enough to win the role for the Canadian production, where she played until it closed over a year later. (She was hoping to transfer to B'way in 1997, but every production shut down in March/April 1997).
None of the obits talk about this landmark casting in the musical - they just say she starred in it.