CELEBRITY
Ellen Holly, First Black Actress To Star In A Soap Opera, Dead At 92
abcsoapsindepth/Instagram
Ellen Holly, the first Black actor to land a lead role on a soap opera and lifelong advocate for Black representation in television, has died at the age of 92.
She died in her sleep at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, New York, on Wednesday publicist Cheryl Duncan announced.
Holly began her career in theater, and made her Broadway debut in Too Late the Phalarope in 1956. She went on to star in the Broadway shows including Face of a Hero, Tiger Tiger Burning Bright and A Hand is on the Gate.
She made several appearances on television, including The Defenders (1963), Sam Benedict (1963), Dr. Kildare (1964) before eventually landing her legendary role on ABC soap opera One Life To Live.
One Life To Live creator Agnes Nixon read Holly’s New York Times op-ed How Black Do You Have To Be? in 1968, and signed her for a one-year contract at $300 a week.
Holly portrayed Carla Benari until 1980, and returned to the role from 1983 to 1985. Holly’s character was a white-passing woman who wasn’t revealed to be Black until the end of her first season. Benari’s storyline involved a love triangle, in which a white doctor fell in love with her after treating her for a nervous breakdown she experienced as a result of her attraction to a Black intern.
Holly’s storyline proved incredibly popular with the public, and other soap operas began incorporating Black characters.
Later in life, Holly reflected on how she was underpaid for the role, and, along with some of her Black castmates, mistreated by executives.
“I feel as if I was hired as a temporary gimmick to rocket-boost a payload of white stars into orbit. Basically, thats what I was used as. And thats how it worked out,” she revealed in a 2012 interview with The Root.
After retiring from acting, she went on to become a librarian at the White Plains Public Library in New York, and wrote several op-eds for the New York Times. Her autobiography, One Life: The Autobiography of an African American Actress, was published in 1996.
TMX contributed to this article.
