Carla Gray is a fictional character from the American
soap opera
A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...
''
One Life to Live
''One Life to Live'' (often abbreviated as ''OLTL'') is an American soap opera broadcast on the ABC television network for more than 43 years, from July 15, 1968, to January 13, 2012, and then on the internet as a web series on Hulu and iTunes ...
'', played by actress
Ellen Holly
Ellen Virginia Holly is an American actress. Beginning her career on stage in the late 1950s, Holly is perhaps best known for her role as Carla Gray–Hall on the ABC daytime soap opera ''One Life to Live'' (1968–80; 1983–85). Holly is noted ...
. Carla appeared from October 1968
through December 1980, and from May 1983 through December 1985.
Carla was one of the original characters created for the show
and was featured in a groundbreaking and very controversial storyline about
race relations
Race relations is a sociological concept that emerged in Chicago in connection with the work of sociologist Robert E. Park and the Chicago race riot of 1919. Race relations designates a paradigm or field in sociology and a legal concept in the ...
. Carla was a lighter-skinned
Black American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
passing as a white woman (specifically an
Italian American
Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...
).
The fact that the character of Carla was actually Black was not revealed to the show's audience until about five months after Ellen Holly debuted in the role.
The revelation was a major shock to viewers, and the series was boycotted by one
Southern affiliate.
Nevertheless, the controversy attracted much attention and ratings shot up for the then-fledgling soap. Carla is recognized as the first Black lead character on a U.S. daytime soap opera.
Storylines
1968–1974
At the series debut of ''One Life to Live'' in July 1968,
Black American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
former housemaid
Sadie Gray
Sadie Gray is a fictional character from the American soap opera ''One Life to Live'', played by Broadway actress and singer Lillian Hayman from 1968 to 1986. Sadie regularly sings at special functions and occasions during her appearance on the ...
(
Lillian Hayman
Lillian Irene Hayman (July 17, 1922 – October 25, 1994) was an American actress and singer.
Career
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Hayman graduated from Wilberforce University with a BA before she began her career in the Broadway theatre.
Sh ...
) lives in an apartment next door to the white
Polish American
Polish Americans ( pl, Polonia amerykańska) are Americans who either have total or partial Polish ancestry, or are citizens of the Republic of Poland. There are an estimated 9.15 million self-identified Polish Americans, representing about 2.83 ...
Wolek family
The Wolek family are fictional characters from the American soap opera ''One Life to Live'' present at its debut in 1968. The Woleks were created as a working-class reflection of the affluent Lord family, and storylines focused on the shared relat ...
and works as the manager of housekeeping for Llanview Hospital. Sadie acts mainly as a confidante for troubled heroine
Anna Wolek
Anna Wolek is a fictional character on the American soap opera ''One Life to Live''. Actress Doris Belack played the character from the show's first episode in 1968 until 1977. After Belack left the show, Kathleen Maguire played the character from ...
(
Doris Belack
Doris Belack (February 26, 1926 – October 4, 2011) was an American character actress of stage, film and television.
Life and career
Belack was born in 1926 in New York City, the younger daughter of Isaac and Bertha Belack, Jewish immigrants ...
) but makes several passing references to a daughter, Clara, who she vaguely says is "lost to her." Anna and the rest of the Woleks assume that Sadie's daughter Clara is dead.
A few months into the series' run,
Dr. Jim Craig (
Robert Milli
Robert A. Milli (March 15, 1933 – July 18, 2019) was an American television actor.
Early years
Milli was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied theater at Catholic University and the University of Maryland.
Career
Milli was perhaps best kno ...
) begins treating a young woman named "Carla Benari," whose illness seems to be psychosomatic — her physical symptoms stem from some unstated mental conflict. Carla, who is assumed to be
Italian American
Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...
, begins working as Jim's receptionist. Very quickly, Carla begins dating Black American resident physician
Price Trainor
A price is the (usually not negative) quantity of payment or compensation given by one party to another in return for goods or services. In some situations, the price of production has a different name. If the product is a "good" in the c ...
(Peter DeAnda).
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
received several angry letters decrying the portrayal of a Black man dating a white woman.
Carla soon strikes up a friendship with Anna herself. On a visit to the
Wolek apartment, Carla runs into Sadie. It is abruptly revealed that "Carla Benari" is Clara Gray, who had not died but run away from home at an early age. Sadie is furious to learn that her daughter was pretending to be white, and Carla herself is mortified — but not enough to end her ruse there and then. Although heartbroken, Sadie does not reveal her daughter's secret.
While Carla and Sadie try to work out their issues, Carla becomes embroiled in a love triangle. Her employer Jim Craig also falls in love with her, and she reciprocates his feelings. Carla divulges her secret to Jim. Not only is he fine with her true racial makeup, he asks her to marry him, allowing her a chance to continue publicly as "Carla Benari." The show found itself in another controversy when one ABC affiliate in
Lubbock, Texas
Lubbock ( )
is the 10th-most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and the seat of government of Lubbock County. With a population of 260,993 in 2021, the city is also the 85th-most populous in the United States. The city is in the northw ...
went so far as to temporarily drop ''One Life to Live'' from its daytime lineup as a result of this storyline.
Carla briefly accepts the proposal but eventually returns Jim's ring, after realizing she would only be marrying him in order to keep perpetuating a lie. After breaking up with Jim, Carla comes clean to everyone in Llanview about her true heritage, including Price. Price is not in the least sympathetic to Carla's predicament. If anything, he is even angrier than Sadie at Carla's ruse. However, he does give her one more chance after she breaks up with Jim.
Price's mother ruins the relationship as she does not like Carla.
Price accepts a job overseas soon afterward and leaves Llanview at the end of 1970.
Carla is able to mend fences with her mother, who stresses that she must be proud of her heritage.
Taking her mother's advice to heart, Carla embraces being Black,
and changes her surname back to "Gray" while keeping the first name "Carla."
In 1972, Carla finds herself in another love triangle, this time being courted by high-flying politico
Bert Skelly
Bert or BERT may refer to:
Persons, characters, or animals known as Bert
*Bert (name), commonly an abbreviated forename and sometimes a surname
*Bert, a character in the poem "Bert the Wombat" by The Wiggles; from their 1992 album Here Comes a So ...
(Herb Davis), and police lieutenant
Ed Hall (
Al Freeman, Jr.). Bert is a slick career politician who seems to promise the good life that Carla desires. Ed is a
blue-collar
A blue-collar worker is a working class person who performs manual labor. Blue-collar work may involve skilled or unskilled labor. The type of work may involving manufacturing, warehousing, mining, excavation, electricity generation and powe ...
, "
salt of the earth" workingman who initially considers Carla to be a stuck-up princess. In time though, Ed proves to be the love of Carla's life, and the two became engaged in 1973.
However, the road to the altar is not an easy one. Ed blames himself for the death of his good friend
Meredith Lord Wolek (
Lynn Benesch
Lynn Benesch, born Lynn Benish in Westchester, New York, aka Lynn Chester, is an American actress and singer, best known for her role as Meredith Lord on the daytime drama ''One Life to Live'' from 1969 to 1973. In 1972 she won praise for her ...
), who is killed during a hostage crisis by Earl Brock (
Kevin Conway) at the
Lord family
The Lord family are fictional characters from the American soap opera '' One Life to Live''. They were introduced in the show's July 15, 1968 debut episode on ABC, and featured for the entirety of its run until the series ended on August 19, 2013 ...
estate,
Llanfair at the same time that Carla finds her life on the line. This forces them to postpone the wedding as Carla is first nearly killed when her brakes fail while she is driving, and again when she is lured to the jeweler's by a mysterious man who poses as a policeman. Carla meets with the man, who points a gun at her and almost shoots her, but
Joe Riley (
Lee Patterson
Lee Patterson (March 31, 1929 – February 14, 2007) was a Canadian film and television actor.
Life and career
Patterson was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, as Beverley Frank Atherly Patterson. He attended the Ontario College of Art and D ...
) comes to her rescue. The man after Carla is revealed to be Lester Brock, the brother of Earl Brock, who blamed Ed for the murder of his brother. Ed and Carla make it to the altar in October and, surrounded by friends and family, they are married. Carla and Ed also initiate proceedings to adopt
Joshua West (
Laurence Fishburne
Laurence John Fishburne III (born July 30, 1961) is an American actor. He is a three time Emmy Award and Tony Award winning actor known for his roles on stage and screen. He has been hailed for his forceful, militant, and authoritative charact ...
), a street kid who Ed had taken in while romancing Carla. Josh soon took the surname Hall and became a son to Ed and Carla.
1975–1980, 1983–1985
By the mid-1970s, airtime for Carla, Ed, and Josh progressively diminished. Carla appears in a supporting capacity in the
Jenny Wolek (
Katherine Glass
Katherine Glass (born January 11, 1947) is an American actress best remembered for her television work in the 1970s.
Career
Glass was raised as a Roman Catholic in New Haven, Connecticut."Kathy takes a day at a time" by Jon-Michael Reed, ''The ...
) and
Tim Siegel (
Tom Berenger
Tom Berenger (born Thomas Michael Moore; May 31, 1949) is an American actor. He was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Staff Sergeant Bob Barnes in ''Platoon'' (1986). He is also known for playing Jake ...
) romance storyline as a friend of Jenny's and as the steadfast confidante of longtime friend Anna Wolek. In late 1975, Josh becomes involved with a girl, Bernice, who is a bad influence on him, asking him for expensive concert tickets he can't afford on his part-time job's wages. Ed gives Josh the money for the concert tickets, but informs him that he won't be giving him any more money if he asks again. Josh would later get fired from his job when Bernice asks him to stay with her to study for a test instead of showing up to his work shift. Carla, tired of being the disciplinarian and afraid of Josh growing up to resent her, insists that Ed put his foot down with Josh about what a bad influence Bernice is. To distract Josh from Bernice, Ed gets him a job working construction on the new nightclub Tony's Place, finally putting Carla's mind at ease.
Toward the end of the decade, Carla did get the spotlight in one more love triangle: she divorces Ed to marry Dr.
Jack Scott (
Arthur Burghardt
Arthur Burghardt (born August 29, 1947) is an American retired actor, best known for portraying Jack Scott on the soap opera ''One Life to Live''. In animation, he's known for lending his deep bass voice as Devastator in '' The Transformers'', D ...
), a surgeon who arrived in Llanview in 1978 and operated on Ed to fix his heart condition. Holly, with the input of Al Freeman, Jr., wrote a 30-page outline for the two-year love triangle storyline, which was approved (albeit with some changes) by then-head of daytime programming,
Fred Silverman
Fred Silverman (September 13, 1937 – January 30, 2020) was an American television executive and producer. He worked as an executive at all of the Big Three television networks, and was responsible for bringing to television such programs as '' ...
.
Carla's 1979 wedding to Jack was estimated to have been watched by eight million viewers,
and landed Holly and Burghardt on the cover of ''
Ebony
Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus ''Diospyros'', which also contains the persimmons. Unlike most woods, ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when pol ...
'' magazine's October 1979 issue.
Jack, however, was always planned to be a short-term character by Holly's design, and was killed off in 1980. During this time, Carla and her mother Sadie found themselves in supporting roles in the storyline involving heroine
Edwina Lewis
The name Edwina is a feminine form of the male name Edwin, which derives from Old English and means "rich friend." Edwin was a popular name until the time of the Norman Conquest, then fell out of favour until Victorian times.
People
*Edwina Barth ...
(
Margaret Klenck
Margaret L. Klenck, M.Div., LP (born January 9, 1953 in Reading, Pennsylvania, USA), is a former American stage and screen actor and a leader of the Jungian analysis profession and president of the Jungian Psychoanalytic Association.
Career Act ...
).
At the end of 1980, Carla tearfully begs Ed (who by this time was running for lieutenant governor on the same ticket as
Herb Callison, played by Anthony Call) to take her back. Even though he acknowledges that he will always love and care for her, he cannot take her back after her marriage to Jack Scott. Feeling the need to start over, Carla leaves Llanview. She returns in 1983 and, after having attended
law school
A law school (also known as a law centre or college of law) is an institution specializing in legal education, usually involved as part of a process for becoming a lawyer within a given jurisdiction.
Law degrees Argentina
In Argentina, ...
in her absence, Carla becomes an
Assistant District Attorney
In the United States, a district attorney (DA), county attorney, state's attorney, prosecuting attorney, commonwealth's attorney, or state attorney is the chief prosecutor and/or chief law enforcement officer representing a U.S. state in a loc ...
. In this new position, she later has to prosecute Ed on manslaughter charges for a police drug bust gone wrong. Also during this time, she is involved in another love triangle. Carla still has feelings for Ed, but she falls in love and nearly marries a football star-turned-nightclub owner Alec Lowndes (
Roger Hill). It takes time for Carla to get over that situation. After Alec is out of the picture, she eventually comes back to Ed.
In September 1985, Carla accepts a job in
Arizona
Arizona ( ; nv, Hoozdo Hahoodzo ; ood, Alĭ ṣonak ) is a state in the Southwestern United States. It is the 6th largest and the 14th most populous of the 50 states. Its capital and largest city is Phoenix. Arizona is part of the Fou ...
similar to what she was doing in
Llanview
Llanview, Pennsylvania is the fictional setting for the long-running American soap opera ''One Life to Live''. The city exists in the same fictional universe as cities from other existing or defunct ABC daytime dramas, including Pine Valley, Penn ...
. After wrapping up odds and ends in town, Carla leaves with her mother Sadie and moves to Arizona. By 1987, Ed and their son Josh would also leave town and move to Arizona to be with them. Sadie dies off-screen in the 1990s. Ed returns to Llanview in 2000 after grandson
Jared Hall (Herve Clermont) accepts a job practicing law.
Impact and reception
Conception and casting
''One Life to Live'' creator
Agnes Nixon
Agnes Nixon ( Eckhardt; December 10, 1922 – September 28, 2016) was an American television writer and producer, and the creator of the ABC soap operas '' One Life to Live'', '' All My Children'', as well as '' Loving'' and its spin-off '' The ...
has said she was inspired to create the Carla Gray character after seeing singer
Eartha Kitt
Eartha Kitt (born Eartha Mae Keith; January 17, 1927 – December 25, 2008) was an American singer and actress known for her highly distinctive singing style and her 1953 recordings of "C'est si bon" and the Christmas novelty song "Santa Ba ...
in a television interview. Kitt expressed her own frustration at facing prejudice from both white and Black audiences because of her light-skinned complexion, and the feeling of not belonging to either group. (Even Carla's surname "Gray" reflects the in-between nature of the character, not "Black" or "white".)
According to actress Ellen Holly's memoir, ''One Life: An Autobiography of an African American Actress'', Nixon based Carla's mother Sadie on a maid who worked for Nixon's family when she was growing up in
Nashville
Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and the ...
,
Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, much the same way that Sadie on ''One Life'' initially worked as a maid for the
Lord family
The Lord family are fictional characters from the American soap opera '' One Life to Live''. They were introduced in the show's July 15, 1968 debut episode on ABC, and featured for the entirety of its run until the series ended on August 19, 2013 ...
. Nixon's childhood maid was named Sadie Gay.
Lillian Hayman
Lillian Irene Hayman (July 17, 1922 – October 25, 1994) was an American actress and singer.
Career
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Hayman graduated from Wilberforce University with a BA before she began her career in the Broadway theatre.
Sh ...
had won a
Tony Award
The Antoinette Perry Award for Excellence in Broadway Theatre, more commonly known as the Tony Award, recognizes excellence in live Broadway theatre. The awards are presented by the American Theatre Wing and The Broadway League at an annual cer ...
in April 1968 for her role as Momma in the musical ''
Hallelujah, Baby!
''Hallelujah, Baby!'' is a musical with music by Jule Styne, lyrics by Adolph Green and Betty Comden, and a book by Arthur Laurents. The show is "a chronicle of the African American struggle for equality during the irst half of the20th centur ...
'', and immediately afterward, ''One Life to Lives casting department offered her the role of Sadie Gray.
The character of Carla (despite debuting in episode 61,
broadcast on October 7, 1968, months after the show's premiere)
was conceptualized in Agnes Nixon's original show Bible,
and as such is considered part of the story of Llanview from the beginning.
Nixon based Carla and Sadie's original story on the film ''
Imitation of Life'',
in which a light-skinned Black woman denies her heritage and her darker-complected mother, and enters white society by
passing.
Ellen Holly
Ellen Virginia Holly is an American actress. Beginning her career on stage in the late 1950s, Holly is perhaps best known for her role as Carla Gray–Hall on the ABC daytime soap opera ''One Life to Live'' (1968–80; 1983–85). Holly is noted ...
was quickly cast in the role of Carla after Agnes Nixon read her
op-ed
An op-ed, short for "opposite the editorial page", is a written prose piece, typically published by a North-American newspaper or magazine, which expresses the opinion of an author usually not affiliated with the publication's editorial board. O ...
piece
which ran in ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' on September 15, 1968, called "How Black Do You Have to Be?",
in which she decried press coverage of actor
Percy Rodriguez
Percy Rodriguez (born Percy Rodrigues; June 13, 1918 – September 6, 2007) was a Canadian actor who appeared in many television shows and films from the 1950s to the 1980s. He was of Afro-Portuguese heritage and was born in the Saint-Henri neigh ...
allegedly not looking "black enough" to be an acceptable Black addition to the cast of ''
Peyton Place'', and detailed her struggles and views as a light-skinned Black actress who could pass for white and chooses not to because she was raised in the Black experience and identifies as Black.
A photograph of Holly ran alongside the op-ed with the caption "Ellen Holly — Not black enough?"
Holly was initially hired to appear on ''One Life to Live'' for one year.
Holly originally had reservations about working on a soap opera, as the bulk of her acting roles up to that point had been in the New York theater scene,
but she took the job anyway, believing that her storyline with Lillian Hayman's Sadie Gray was very important and should be told on television,
while also not wanting to turn down one year's worth of work and steady pay.
Holly wrote a follow-up op-ed called "Living a White Life — For a While",
which was published in the ''Times'' on August 10, 1969;
in the op-ed Holly writes at length about her experiences as a lighter-skinned Black actress as well as her experiences after she was cast on ''One Life to Live''.
Of note in the 1969 follow-up op-ed is Holly's (and also ABC's) insistence on using the term "Black" on-screen, as opposed to "
Negro
In the English language, ''negro'' is a term historically used to denote persons considered to be of Black African heritage. The word ''negro'' means the color black in both Spanish and in Portuguese, where English took it from. The term can be ...
" which was still considered the correct way to refer to African Americans by many in the U.S. at this time.
Holly would go on to write seven more op-eds for ''The New York Times'' during her time on ''One Life to Live''.
Impact on daytime television
Before Carla Gray, there had been no African American lead characters on any daytime soap opera. Prior to creating ''One Life to Live'', Agnes Nixon had worked as head writer on the soap operas ''
The Guiding Light
''Guiding Light'' (known as ''The Guiding Light'' before 1975) is an American radio and television soap opera. It is listed in ''Guinness World Records'' as the third longest-running drama in television in American history. ''Guiding Light'' a ...
'' and ''
Another World'' and had attempted to integrate African American characters and actors into these shows, but with limited success. The most enduring of Nixon's first Black characters was recurring character Peggy Nolan, a legal secretary-turned-attorney on ''Another World'' played by actress
Micki Grant
Micki Grant (born Minnie Louise Perkins, June 30, 1929 – August 22, 2021) was an American singer (soprano), actress, writer, and composer. She performed in ''Having Our Say'' (as Sadie Delaney), ''Tambourines to Glory'' and ''Jericho-Jim Crow' ...
,
who would appear on the soap from 1966 until 1973. In 1967, a
CBS
CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...
soap opera, ''
Love Is a Many Splendored Thing'', featured an
Asian American
Asian Americans are Americans of Asian ancestry (including naturalized Americans who are immigrants from specific regions in Asia and descendants of such immigrants). Although this term had historically been used for all the indigenous people ...
, actress
Nancy Hsueh
Nancy Hsueh (February 25, 1941 – November 24, 1980) was an American actress. She was one of the first Asian American actresses to have a leading role in a U.S. television series, '' Love is a Many Splendored Thing'' (1967), regarded as the first ...
, as a leading heroine, but the actress and her character Mia Elliott were written out after six months on the air.
ABC
ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script known as the alphabet.
ABC or abc may also refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Broadcasting
* American Broadcasting Company, a commercial U.S. TV broadcaster
** Disney–ABC Television ...
as a network was already committed by the late 1960s to broadcasting programming produced by and for African Americans on their five
owned-and-operated station
In the broadcasting industry, an owned-and-operated station (frequently abbreviated as an O&O) usually refers to a television or radio station owned by the network with which it is associated. This distinguishes such a station from an affiliate ...
s,
and the network's vision when ''One Life to Live'' was making its debut was to tell stories the other two networks did not. That particular concept — to tell stories other people hadn't told or wouldn't tell — was a hallmark of Agnes Nixon's storytelling.
In an editorial published in the industry journal ''Television Quarterly'' in 1972, Nixon wrote, "For any dramatic entertainment to be a success
n this day and ageit must be relevant...Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of "relevance" is the way it has permitted us to incorporate into our "soaps" many socially significant issues, to educate viewers while we are entertaining them... For almost two years we told the story of a young Negro woman of light pigmentation who passed as white. This sequence was done primarily because it furnished us with an intense, absorbing drama that attracted viewers. But the mail response substantiated our belief that it was absorbing ''because'' it was relevant and because it explained to viewers the sociological motivations for such a denial of heritage and race due to the rejections suffered by the young woman from both the black and white communities. The ultimate tragedy we were presenting was simply another instance of man's cruelty to man, instigated by ignorance and prejudice."
As Carla's storyline played out on TV screens in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, viewers were watching the first non-white lead character to be featured in a front-burning, sustained storyline for several years on a soap opera.
To that end, ''One Life to Live'' became the most-watched daytime soap opera among African Americans,
followed closely behind by ''
All My Children
''All My Children'' (often shortened to ''AMC'') is an American television soap opera that aired on American Broadcasting Company, ABC from January 5, 1970, to September 23, 2011, and on The Online Network (TOLN) from April 29 to September 2, 20 ...
'', also created by Agnes Nixon, the only other soap opera at the time to focus consistently on providing storylines for Black characters.
By the 1980s, it was estimated that 12% of all African American households watched soap operas,
twice the rate of white households,
for which actress Ellen Holly was given partial credit.
(In fact it was Nixon's sister soap ''All My Children'' that debuted daytime's second Black leading female character,
Nancy Grant, played by Lisa Wilkinson, who arrived in
Pine Valley in 1973 as the wife of John Danelle's character
Frank Grant and stayed on the canvas for 11 years.
Black publications such as ''
Jet''
featured the two actors, who were married in real life,
in cover stories.)
Throughout her fourteen-and-a-half years on the program, Holly was given varying degrees of autonomy in the sculpting of the character of Carla
and the storylines in which she would be involved.
Holly's input was solicited at first because there were no Black writers on the ''One Life to Live'' writing staff;
head writer
Sam Hall eventually convinced ABC to hire a Black writer because he wanted to lend more authenticity to Carla's storyline.
Ellen Holly's primary role on ''One Life to Live'' paved the way for more Black actors and actresses to be given prominent storylines on other daytime soaps. In 1968, the year Holly debuted on ''One Life to Live'', only three Black actors were featured in a recurring status or higher on U.S. daytime soap operas;
that number would increase to 25 by 1982,
with
Al Freeman, Jr., who played Carla's husband Ed Hall, becoming the first Black man to win a
Daytime Emmy Award
The Daytime Emmy Awards, or Daytime Emmys, are part of the extensive range of Emmy Awards for artistic and technical merit for the American television industry. Bestowed by the New York–based National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences ...
in a leading category in 1979.
When asked about the cultural impact of Black storylines which aired on ''One Life to Live'', Holly said in a 1979 interview with ''
Ebony
Ebony is a dense black/brown hardwood, coming from several species in the genus ''Diospyros'', which also contains the persimmons. Unlike most woods, ebony is dense enough to sink in water. It is finely textured and has a mirror finish when pol ...
'' magazine, "There are enormous stretches in this country where they don't know anything about Black people...Our viewers tend to regard us as neighbors. People at the supermarket, total strangers, will throw their arms around you and treat you as a neighbor...My mother on the show has been a domestic and is now head of the housekeeping staff at the hospital; my ex-husband on the show is a policeman, and Arthur
urghardtplays a brilliant heart surgeon...I think we've opened up our viewers' heads a little bit more to the variety that exists in the Black race. And the more that happens, the slower somebody will be — when they're confronted with any given Black person — to jump to conclusions about who and what that person is."
Wedding of Ed and Carla Hall
Ed Hall and Carla Gray were initially supposed to marry in the summer of 1973. However, several news breaks chronicling the
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a major political scandal in the United States involving the administration of President Richard Nixon from 1972 to 1974 that led to Nixon's resignation. The scandal stemmed from the Nixon administration's continual ...
were
preempting daytime television
Daytime is a block of television programming taking place during the late-morning and afternoon on weekdays. Daytime programming is typically scheduled to air between the hours of 9:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m., following the early morning d ...
. This forced ''One Life to Live'' to push the wedding into the fall. In its place the story of Lester Brock attempting to kill Carla on numerous occasions would test Carla and Ed's commitment to each other for a final time before they were to marry.
Famous pianist and jazz singer
Hazel Scott
Hazel Dorothy Scott (June 11, 1920 – October 2, 1981) was a Trinidad-born American jazz and classical pianist and singer. She was an outspoken critic of racial discrimination and segregation. She used her influence to improve the representat ...
made a deal with the show's head-writers to make an appearance on ''OLTL'' as well. She would play a famous aunt of Carla's who would sing a song to the newlyweds. Hazel Scott wrote the song herself and appeared in the October 3 and 4 episodes of 1973, in which Carla and Ed were to marry. The marriage ceremony itself was broadcast on October 5, 1973.
The wedding was also the first on-screen wedding of two African American characters on a U.S. daytime soap.
Holly leaves ''One Life to Live'' for the first time
Unfortunately, Holly depicts a backstage story that diverges far from the ideal storyline shown on air. She claims that despite Carla Gray's storylines being major reasons for the series' early success (with ''One Life to Live'' having the highest number of non-white viewers),
she faced racist attitudes behind the camera. These included being paid less than white actresses on the program
(Holly was initially paid $300 per week as outlined in her 1968-69 contract, rising to only $325 per week in 1969-70 and $350 per week in 1970-71);
returning from the funeral of her nephew who died of
glioblastoma
Glioblastoma, previously known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), is one of the most aggressive types of cancer that begin within the brain. Initially, signs and symptoms of glioblastoma are nonspecific. They may include headaches, personality ch ...
only to find that in the elapsed time, her dressing room was given away to a white actress;
and discriminatory treatment while taking part in a feature and photoshoot on the history of ''One Life to Live'' for ''Daytime TV'' magazine
which Lillian Hayman was not present for as she was not invited to take part,
despite being a main cast member at the time.
Holly became very attached to ''One Life to Lives first producer, Doris Quinlan, and was emotionally impacted when she left the program in 1977,
so much so that Holly and Al Freeman, Jr. wrote a letter to ABC executives on behalf of the show's cast which attempted to lobby to keep Quinlan's job safe,
but the duo were unsuccessful in their efforts.
Holly would later learn that Quinlan being replaced by Joseph Stuart was agreed upon by many higher-ups in the program's hierarchy,
including Agnes Nixon,
who considered both producers her protégés.
Quinlan's successor Stuart was tougher in critiquing Holly's acting than Quinlan had been.
This was partly due to Holly's letter to ABC executives, which Stuart knew about and saw as a direct personal attack.
Holly also took umbrage with Stuart's handling of the love triangle storyline she devised,
particularly the hiring of Arthur Burghardt as she explicitly voiced her disapproval over the planned casting choice
and even had another actor in mind to play the role of Dr. Jack Scott,
who Stuart rejected after allowing Holly's preferred actor to audition.
Finally, Holly took issue with the prominence of
Erika Slezak
Erika Alma Hermina Slezak (; born August 5, 1946) is an American actress, best known for her role as Victoria "Viki" Lord on the American daytime soap opera ''One Life to Live'' from 1971 through the television finale in 2012 and again in the ...
's character
Victoria "Viki" Riley in Carla's 1979 wedding storyline;
Holly alleged that Slezak thought her participation as matron-of-honor in Carla's wedding was an attempt to "give luster" to the storyline.
Holly also alleged that the character of Viki Riley was placed into the storyline in an attempt to endear Viki more to the African American viewership demographic.
In the same interview series, when asked about this specific situation, Slezak briefly complimented Holly's ability as an actress and said that she was "strong-willed" and "intelligent".
A combination of all the aforementioned examples contributed to Holly's decision to step away from ''One Life to Live'' in December 1980.
In a 2013 interview, Holly said of her decision to leave, "I fled the show because my health was literally going down the tubes. The first two years of ''One Life'' were thrilling. After that, it's just a question of being a fireplug that keeps getting pissed on by junkyard dogs."
Holly decided to start a theater workshop with the ultimate goal of producing Broadway and Off-Broadway plays with
Joseph Papp
Joseph Papp (born Joseph Papirofsky; June 22, 1921 – October 31, 1991) was an American theatrical producer and director. He established The Public Theater in what had been the Astor Library Building in Lower Manhattan. There Papp created a y ...
.
Joseph Stuart's eventual replacement,
Jean Arley, was interested in bringing Carla back into the canvas in Llanview.
Holly's friend, casting director
Mary Jo Slater
Mary Jo Slater (née Lawton; born April 19, 1946) is an American casting director and producer for film, television and theatre. She has over 100 movie credits to her name.
Slater was born in Trenton, New Jersey, the daughter of Anna Mae (Sw ...
,
informed Holly that Agnes Nixon had moved Stuart over to ''
Loving'', her new soap opera, to be its producer.
Once Slater arranged a lunch where Arley had the chance to meet Holly, Holly felt immediately at ease.
Jean Arley would bring Holly and the character of Carla back into the show in the spring of 1983.
Holly insisted on a salary of $150,000 per year,
twice the amount she made when she left in 1980,
despite knowing that other actors on the program were making more than $1 million at that time.
Even though ABC originally tried to negotiate,
the network paid Holly the amount she asked for.
Treatment of Holly and Carla under Paul Rauch
A fifteenth anniversary celebration event was held in honor of ''One Life to Live'' at New York City's
Tavern on the Green
Tavern on the Green is an American cuisine restaurant in Central Park in Manhattan, New York City, near the intersection of Central Park West and West 66th Street on the Upper West Side. The restaurant, housed in a former sheepfold, has been op ...
in the second half of 1983,
and Holly and Lillian Hayman were front-and-center at the festivities as the two actors had played some of Nixon's original ''One Life to Live'' characters.
Holly posits that, as a result of their primary role in the celebration while newer and perhaps more popular actors were sidelined,
ABC fired Jean Arley, the producer who brought her back to ''One Life to Live'' after a two-and-a-half-year absence and the person who organized the event, and replaced her with
Paul Rauch
Paul Rauch (1930 – December 10, 2012) was an American television and film producer. Rauch's work was primarily in American soap operas.
Career
Rauch's earlier jobs included Vice President, Programs-East Coast for CBS, Supervising Producer for ...
.
In her book, Holly is vocal about her frustration at her character being pushed into the background to make way for new white characters, and about being summarily dismissed in 1985 by Rauch, who by that time had become executive producer and writing consultant. Rauch fired every Black lead or recurring character on the show during his 1984-91 tenure. (Rauch's eventual successor,
Linda Gottlieb
Linda Gottlieb is an American television writer and film producer.
Early life and education
Born in New Jersey, Gottlieb graduated from Wellesley College in 1960 and received an M.A. from the Russian Institute of Columbia University in 1961.
Car ...
,
reintroduced Black characters into ''One Life to Live'' within six months of her July 1991 arrival.)
In a 2018 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Holly said she had a feeling she would be fired from ''One Life to Live'' when new executive producer Rauch reprimanded Holly publicly for her choice of hairstyle in front of the crew and other actors, alleging that shoulder-length hair was "unprofessional" for an Assistant District Attorney. This dressing-down, in front of crew and actors, was something that had never happened to Holly while working on the program before.
Joseph Stuart had given Holly tough critiques toward the end of her first stint playing Carla, but those critiques always occurred privately, behind closed doors.
She also intuited that storyline options for the character of Carla promised to her by Arley, like one that would have involved Carla adopting children and raising them as a single mother, would not be going forward.
According to Holly, Rauch would publicly reprimand her for the slightest infractions, or even perceived infractions. In one instance, Rauch ordered Holly take voice lessons because her voice was "an offense to the public that should be taken off the air."
After Holly consulted a voice coach who was similarly puzzled by Rauch's request to change Holly's voice, Rauch informed Holly that he "couldn't quite put
isfinger" on why he disliked her voice.
Holly believed that Rauch's pivot from material infractions to perceived infractions was his way of breaking her spirit,
as Holly immediately changed her hairstyle upon her first reprimand, but could not change her voice as she received no constructive feedback with which she could work.
Holly was eventually fired by Rauch in late 1985:
See also
*
''One Life to Live'' storylines (1968–1979)
Bibliography
* Warner, Gary. ''One Life to Live: Thirty Years of Memories''.
Hyperion Books ()
* Holly, Ellen. ''One Life: An Autobiography of an African American Actress.'' Kodansha America, 1998 ()
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gray, Carla
One Life to Live characters
Television characters introduced in 1968
Fictional characters from Pennsylvania
Fictional African-American people
Fictional American lawyers
Fictional actors
Female characters in television