Acting
Jul 16, 1935
Bronx, New York, USA
Diahann Carroll
Acting
Biography
Diahann Carroll (born Carol Diahann Johnson; July 17, 1935 – October 4, 2019) was an American actress, singer and model. She rose to stardom in performances in some of the earliest major studio films to feature black casts, including Carmen Jones in 1954 and Porgy and Bess in 1959. In 1962, Carroll won a Tony Award for best actress, a first for a black woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings. Her 1968 debut in Julia, the first series on American television to star a black woman in a nonstereotypical role, was a milestone both in her career and the medium. In the 1980s she played the role of an interracial diva in the primetime soap opera Dynasty. Carroll was the recipient of numerous stage and screen nominations and awards, including the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress In A Television Series in 1968. She received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress for the 1974 film Claudine. She was also a breast cancer survivor and activist.
Feature Films (54)
In the early 1900s, the fictional Catfish Row section of Charleston, South Carolina serves as home to a black fishing community. Crippled beggar Porgy, who travels about in a goat-drawn cart, loves the drug-addicted Bess, who lives with stevedore Crown, the local bully.
Porgy and Bess
Archival music performances and contemporary interviews cover some of the history of Motown Records and Productions.
Motown 40: The Music Is Forever
During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
Paris Blues
In the early 1960s, a quintet of hopeful, young African-American men form an amateur vocal group called The Five Heartbeats. After an initially rocky start, the group improves, turns pro, and rises to become a top flight music sensation. Along the way, however, the guys learn many hard lessons about the reality of the music industry.
The Five Heartbeats
Summer heats up in rural Louisiana beside Eve’s Bayou, 1962, as the Batiste family tries to survive the secrets they’ve kept and the betrayals they’ve endured.
Eve's Bayou
A detective uncovers a sinister conspiracy when he is sent to research a disintegrating neighborhood for a public relations campaign.
The Front
Detective Win Garano is asked to reopen a twenty-year-old murder case, and soon finds himself endangered by the political ambitions of a district attorney.
At Risk
In this musical set in an all-Black army camp, civilian parachute maker and "hot bundle" Carmen Jones is desired by many of the men. Naturally, she wants Joe, who's engaged to sweet Cindy Lou and about to go into pilot training for the Korean War.
Carmen Jones
In 19th century New Orleans, creole Henriette must choose between love and devotion to the church. Neither choice is going to be easy, as there is great opposition to her ideas of breaking traditions.
The Courage to Love
Television & Series (63)
A Different World is a spin-off series from The Cosby Show and originally centered on Denise Huxtable and the life of students at Hillman College, a fictional mixed but historically black college in the state of Virginia. After Bonet's departure in the first season, the remainder of the series primarily focused more on Southern belle Whitley Gilbert and mathematics whiz Dwayne Wayne. The series frequently depicted members of the major historically black fraternities and sororities.
A Different World
Follows the personal and professional lives of a group of doctors at Seattle's Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital.
Grey's Anatomy
Half & Half is an American sitcom that aired on UPN from September 23, 2002, to May 15, 2006. The show focuses on the lives of two paternal half-sisters in their twenties who were estranged throughout their childhood, and are finally developing a close relationship. The series is set in San Francisco. It was the second-most-watched show on UPN's Monday night line-up and fourth overall on the network. The show was on The CW's first draft line-up in March 2006, but due to several circumstances—including The CW's contractual obligation to pick up Reba, the uncancelling of All of Us, and the pick-up of the Girlfriends spin-off The Game—Half & Half was left off the final Fall 2006 schedule and ended production. The series has aired in reruns on Global TV in Canada, Trouble in the UK and in local syndication in the United States. It also airs in the United States on TV One.
Half & Half
Cher and Sonny Bono starred in this quintessentially '70's TV comedy/variety show. Sonny and Cher's hit songs featured prominently on the show, as they would often sing and perform them between short skits.
