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Ellen Holly, the first Black actor to have a leading role on a daytime soap opera, died peacefully in her sleep on Wednesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx. She was 92.
Photo by Ashley E. Jones
Holly joined ABC’s One Life to Live in 1968, in the role of Carla Benari, an actress of seemingly Italian heritage who found romance with Jim Craig, a white doctor (played by Robert Milli and then Nat Polen). It eventually came out that Carla Benari was actually Carla Gray, an African-American passing as white –and the daughter of Llanview Hospital housekeeping boss Sadie Gray...
Photo by Ashley E. Jones
Holly joined ABC’s One Life to Live in 1968, in the role of Carla Benari, an actress of seemingly Italian heritage who found romance with Jim Craig, a white doctor (played by Robert Milli and then Nat Polen). It eventually came out that Carla Benari was actually Carla Gray, an African-American passing as white –and the daughter of Llanview Hospital housekeeping boss Sadie Gray...
- 12/8/2023
- by Matt Webb Mitovich
- TVLine.com
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Ellen Holly, whose long-running turn as Carla on ABC’s One Life to Live made her the first Black actress to gain stardom on a daytime soap opera, has died. She was 92.
Holly died in her sleep Wednesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, publicist Cheryl L. Duncan announced.
A member of The Actors Studio who did Shakespeare for Joseph Papp and was mentored by the same woman who discovered Julie Harris and Kim Stanley, Holly appeared four times on Broadway, beginning with her acclaimed performance in 1956 as the female lead in Too Late the Phalarope.
She appeared in a handful of films as well, from Take a Giant Step (1959), starring Johnny Nash, Estelle Hemsley and Ruby Dee, to School Daze (1988), directed by Spike Lee.
Holly, however, did not work as often as her talents suggested she should have, because as a light-skinned African American, she had difficulty being hired...
Holly died in her sleep Wednesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, publicist Cheryl L. Duncan announced.
A member of The Actors Studio who did Shakespeare for Joseph Papp and was mentored by the same woman who discovered Julie Harris and Kim Stanley, Holly appeared four times on Broadway, beginning with her acclaimed performance in 1956 as the female lead in Too Late the Phalarope.
She appeared in a handful of films as well, from Take a Giant Step (1959), starring Johnny Nash, Estelle Hemsley and Ruby Dee, to School Daze (1988), directed by Spike Lee.
Holly, however, did not work as often as her talents suggested she should have, because as a light-skinned African American, she had difficulty being hired...
- 12/7/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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