She was Her publicist, Jeffrey Lane, said the cause was complications of breast cancer. Carroll had survived the cancer in the s and become a public advocate for screening and treatment. Carroll as Julia Baker, a widowed nurse with a young son.

TV Pioneers

Child of Harlem
She rose to prominence in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess Her debut in Julia , the first series on American television to star a Black woman in a non-stereotypical role, [1] was a milestone both in her career and the medium. In the s, she played the role of Dominique Deveraux , a mixed-race diva, in the prime time soap opera Dynasty.
Navigation menu
Learn more. Diahann Carroll broke television barriers in as the lead character in NBC's Julia , becoming the first black actress to star in her own series. In , she did it again, as the glamorous invader of the all-white environment of nighttime soaps as Dynasty 's Dominique Deveraux. On Jan. The oft-married grandmother — once engaged to Sidney Poitier — talked to us about her role in integrating primetime TV, lessons learned from more than five decades as an entertainer, and what it was like to swap slaps with Joan Collins. I thought it would be a glorious idea, but the thought of [moving to California and] not being in New York really frightened me. I'm a staunch New Yorker. My parents were there. I married there, I had a baby.
She was Carroll burst on the scene as one of the first black actresses to star in studio films. Take a different point of view of blacks in the United States. She received a cash prize in addition to being booked at the famed Latin Quarter nightclub in New York City. Her third husband, Robert A. DeLeon died a year later.