Happy birthday yesterday to one of the troupers of music and acting, the lovely and multi-talented Miss Diahann Carroll.
Best known to audiences worldwide as the formidable "Dominique Devereaux" in Dynasty, her career in fact spans six decades - she was the first black actress in television history to star in her own series Julia in 1968 (which received an Emmy nomination in its first year on the air), and made many subsequent TV appearances in both singing and acting roles, including playing Whoopi Goldberg's mother in that lady's one-woman show.
The young Carol Diahann Johnson emerged from stage school in the early 1950s and was catapulted into showbiz via supporting roles in films such as Carmen Jones (with Dorothy Dandridge) and Porgy & Bess (with Sydney Poitier, Sammy Davis Jr and Pearl Bailey). A long career - with myriad studio albums, and appearances on stage, on TV and on film (including an Oscar nomination for her role in Claudine) - was to follow, culminating in the Dynasty role.
Up to the present day, Miss Carroll's energetic performances and smoky soulful voice still draw in the crowds for her one-woman shows in New York, and she has conquered glittering roles such as Norma Desmond in Lloyd-Webber's Sunset Boulevard to great acclaim.
Diahann's autobiography, The Legs Are The Last To Go was published last September, and is available from Amazon.
And here are some stunning appearances by the lady herself:
Wow.
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