Oscar Profile #648: Diahann Carroll

Born July 17, 1935 in the Bronx, New York, Carol Diann Johnson, known professionally as Diahann Carroll, was a multi-talented actress, singer, and dancer. She was a Tony winner, an Oscar nominee, a four-time Emmy nominee, and a two-time Grammy nominee. She was also a three-time Golden Globe nominee, winning on her first nomination for TV’s Julia.

Carroll was the eldest child of a subway conductor and his wife who was a nurse. She started singing in her Harlem church choir while taking singing and dancing lessons, hoping to become an opera singer. Opera was not in her future, but popular songs were. She got her big break at the age of 18 when she appeared as contestant on TV’s Chance of a Lifetime in January 1954 winning the top prize for singing Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Why Was I Born?” and went on to win the next four weeks as well. That led to engagements at sleek NYC nightclubs.

Carroll made her film debut in a supporting role in 1954’s Carmen Jones and her Broadway debut in House of Flowers later that year in which she introduced “A Sleepin’ Bee” and “I Has Never Seen Snow”. She married talent scout Monte Kay in 1956 with whom she had a daughter in 1960.

In 1959, Carroll appeared in her second film, Porgy and Bess which led to a nine-year affair with the film’s star, Sidney Poitier, leading to her divorce from Kay in 1963. In the meantime, she was in two more films, a small role as a nightclub singer in Goodbye Again and a starring role with Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, and Poitier in Paris Blues. Then came Broadway’s No Strings for which she won a Tony.

Following her prominent role 1967’s Hurry Sundown, she starred as a widowed nurse with a child in TV’s Julia for four years, earning a Golden Globe and an Emmy nomination in the first season. In 1970, she became engaged to TV journalist David Frost, but in 1973 abruptly married Las Vegas boutique owner Fred Glusman which lasted a mere four months. Her starring role in 1974’s Claudine earned her an Oscar nomination.

In 1975, Carroll 39, married 24-year-old Jet Magazine publisher Robert DeLeon who died in a car crash two years later.

Carroll raised her profile considerably with her role in TV’s Dynasty from 1984-1987. In 1987, she married singer Vic Damone. That decade also saw her return to Broadway as Geraldine Page’s replacement in Agnes of God. In 1995, she starred in an acclaimed production of Sunset Boulevard. She was divorced from Damone in 1996.

Diagnosed with cancer in 1997, Carroll went into remission after therapy. She continued her career, most notably on TV in such shows as Touched by an Angel, Gray’s Anatomy, and White Collar in which she appeared in 25 episodes from 2009-2014.

Carroll’s cancer came back, and she was also diagnosed with dementia, dying on October 4, 2016. She was 84.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

CARMEN JONES (1954), directed by Otto Preminger

Based on the 1944 Broadway hit, this was an updated version of Bizet’s Carmen with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein II that is best remembered for bringing Dorothy Dandridge an Oscar nomination in the title role, the first for a Black performer in a lead role. She and Harry Belafonte were the film’s stars with Pearl Bailey and Carroll, in her film debut, in prominent supporting roles. Later that same year, Bailey and Carroll were reunited for Broadway’s House of Flowers in which Carroll introduced both “A Sleepin Bee” and “I Never Has Seen Snow”.

PARIS BLUES (1961), directed by Martin Ritt

Paul Newman and Sidney Poitier play American ex-patriate jazz musicians living in Paris who fall in love with two American tourists played by Joanne Woodward and Carroll leading to their having to decide between the women and their careers. Louis Armstrong leads the supporting cast and Duke Ellington was nominated for an Oscar for his score. At the time, Poitier and Carroll were in a nine-year relationship that lasted from 1959 when they met on the set of Porgy and Bess in which he starred, and she had a supporting role. The relationship ended in 1968.

HURRY SUNDOWN (1967), directed by Otto Preminger

Preminger had had six successes in a row, Anatomy of a Murder, Exodus, Advise & Consent, The Cardinal, In Harm’s Way, and Bunny Lake Is Missing. This overheated melodrama in which Carroll is fourth billed was the beginning os a decline for the legendary director from which he never recovered. Others involved in this fiasco include Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Robert Hooks, Faye Dunaway, Burgess Meredith, George Kennedy, Beah Richards, and Frank Converse.

CLAUDINE (1974), directed by John Berry

Originally conceived as a vehicle for Diana Sands who died of cancer shortly before she was to begin work on the film, Carroll, who was a friend of Sands’, was brought in at her request to replace her. Director Berger was unconvinced that Carroll could play a role that was completely devoid of the glamour and sophistication with which she was usually associated, but Carroll proved him wrong in this comedy-drama about a garbage collector played by James Earl Jones who is initially intimidated by his date with Carroll’s single mother of six on welfare for which she nominated for an Oscar.

WHITE COLLAR (2009-2014), created by Jeff Eastin

Carroll appeared in 25 of the five season’s 81 episodes of the tongue-in-cheek crime rime drama about a con man working for the FBI. Matt Bomer starred as the con man who released from prison in the custody of Tim DeKay, the FBI agent who captured him. Initially given board in a rundown hotel, Bomer goes to a secondhand clothing store where he meets Carroll, the widow of a wealthy con man whose clothes she was donating. A perfect match, Carroll does more than give him her late husband’s clothes, she arranges to move him into her Riverside Drive mansion on New York’s upper west side.