Diahann Caroll was born on July 17th
1935 as Carol Diahann Johnson in the Bronx, New York. As a child her
parents enrolled her in dance, modeling, and singing classes. When
she was 15 years old she was already 6 feet tall and modeling for
Ebony magazine. After high school she went to NYU and majored in
sociology. At 18 she appeared on a program called Chance of a
Lifetime. She won $1,000 for her performance of “Why Was I Born?”
and won for the next four weeks. She soon began performing at
nightclubs.
She debuted in film in the movie Carmen Jones as a
supporting role in 1954. In 1958 she made it to Broadway in the
musical House of Flowers. She performed in more series and plays and
won a Tony Award for best actress for the musical No Strings which
was the first for a Black woman. In 1974 she was nominated for an
Academy Award for Best Actress in the movie Claudine.
She became
known for her role in the 1968 series Julia. This show made her the
first Black actress to star in her own television series where she
was not portraying a domestic worker. For that she won a Golden Globe
for Best Actress in a Television Series and was nominated for an Emmy
Award in 1969.
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