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Diahann Carroll Biography & Facts

Diahann Carroll ( dy-AN; born Carol Diann Johnson; July 17, 1935 – October 4, 2019) was an American actress, singer, model, and activist. Before her death she was one of the last remaining stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood. Carroll was the recipient of numerous stage and screen nominations and awards, including her Tony Award in 1962, Golden Globe Award in 1968, and five Emmy Award nominations. Carroll rose to prominence in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including the classic movie musicals Carmen Jones (1954) and Porgy and Bess (1959). She received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination for her title role in the romantic comedy-drama film Claudine (1974). Carroll's other notable film credits include Paris Blues (1961), The Split (1968), Eve's Bayou (1997), and Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters First 100 Years (1999). She starred as the title role in Julia (1968-1971), for which she received a Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star – Female. The series was the first on American television to star a black woman in a non-stereotypical role. She played the role of Dominique Deveraux, a mixed-race diva, in the prime time soap opera Dynasty from 1984 to 1987. She is also known for her roles in Naked City, A Different World, and Grey's Anatomy. Carroll made her Broadway debut playing Ottilie Alias Violet in the musical House of Flowers (1954). She became the first African-American woman to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for her role as Barbara Woodruff in the musical No Strings (1962). Early years Carol Diann Johnson was born in the Bronx, New York City, on July 17, 1935, to John Johnson, a subway conductor, and Mabel (Faulk), a nurse.: 152  While Carroll was still an infant, the family moved to Harlem, where she grew up except for a brief period in which her parents had left her with an aunt in North Carolina.: 152  She attended Music and Art High School, and was a classmate of Billy Dee Williams. In many interviews about her childhood, Carroll recalls her parents' support, and their enrolling her in dance, singing, and modeling classes. By the time Carroll was 15, she was modeling for Ebony. "She also began entering television contests, including Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts, under the name Diahann Carroll.": 152  After graduating from high school, she attended New York University, where she majored in sociology,: 152  "but she left before graduating to pursue a show-business career, promising her family that if the career did not materialize after two years, she would return to college." Career Carroll's big break came at the age of 18, when she appeared as a contestant on the DuMont Television Network program, Chance of a Lifetime, hosted by Dennis James.: 152  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. Carroll's film debut was a supporting role in Carmen Jones (1954), as a friend to the sultry lead character played by Dorothy Dandridge. That same year, she starred in the Broadway musical, House of Flowers. A few years later, she played Clara in the film version of George Gershwin's Porgy and Bess (1959), but her character's singing parts were dubbed by opera singer Loulie Jean Norman. The following year, Carroll made a guest appearance in the series Peter Gunn, in the episode "Sing a Song of Murder" (1960). In the next two years, she starred with Sidney Poitier, Paul Newman, and Joanne Woodward in the film Paris Blues (1961) and won the 1962 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical (the first time for a Black woman) for portraying Barbara Woodruff in the Samuel A. Taylor and Richard Rodgers musical No Strings. Twelve years later, she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for her starring role alongside James Earl Jones in the film Claudine (1974), which part had been written specifically for actress Diana Sands (who had made guest appearances on Julia as Carroll's cousin Sara), but shortly before filming was to begin, Sands learned she was terminally ill with cancer. Sands attempted to carry on with the role, but as filming began, she became too ill to continue and recommended her friend Carroll take over the role. Sands died in September 1973, before the film's release in April 1974. Carroll is known for her titular role in the television series Julia (1968–71),: 141–151  which made her the first African-American actress to star in her own television series who did not play a domestic worker. That role won her the Golden Globe Award for Best TV Star – Female for its first year, and a nomination for an Primetime Emmy Award in 1969. Some of Carroll's earlier work also included appearances on shows hosted by Johnny Carson, Judy Garland, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar, and Ed Sullivan, and on The Hollywood Palace variety show. In 1984, Carroll joined the nighttime soap opera Dynasty at the end of its fourth season as the mixed-race jet set diva Dominique Deveraux, Blake Carrington's half-sister. Her high-profile role on Dynasty also reunited her with her schoolmate Billy Dee Williams, who briefly played her onscreen husband Brady Lloyd. Carroll remained on the show and made several appearances on its short-lived spin-off, The Colbys until she departed at the end of the seventh season in 1987. In 1989, she began the recurring role of Marion Gilbert in A Different World, for which she received her third Emmy nomination that same year. In 1991, Carroll portrayed Eleanor Potter, the doting, concerned, and protective wife of Jimmy Potter (portrayed by Chuck Patterson), in the musical drama film The Five Heartbeats (1991), also featuring actor and musician Robert Townsend and Michael Wright. She reunited with Billy Dee Williams again in 1995, portraying his character's wife Mrs. Greyson in Lonesome Dove: The Series. The following year, 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 film Sunset Boulevard. In 2001, Carroll made her animation debut in The Legend of Tarzan, in which she voiced Queen La, ruler of the ancient city of Opar. In 2006, Carroll appeared in several episodes of the television medical drama Grey's Anatomy as Jane Burke, the demanding mother of Dr. Preston Burke. From 2008 to 2014, she appeared on USA Network's series White Collar in the recurring role of June, the savvy widow who rents out her guest room to Neal Caffrey. In 2010, Carroll was featured in UniGlobe Entertainment's breast cancer docudrama titled 1 a Minute, and appeared as Nana in two Lifetime movie adaptations of Patricia Cornwell novels: At Risk and The Front. In 2013, Carroll was present on stage at the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards to briefly speak about being the first African-.... Discover the Diahann Carroll popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Diahann Carroll books.