The world lost a glamorous icon today when news broke that actress Diahann Carroll had died. She was 84.
Her daughter, Suzanne Kay, announced that the actress passed away inside her Los Angeles home on Friday. Carroll had been battling cancer.
Carroll was best known for becoming the first African-American actress not to portray a stereotypical role on television thanks to her stint on Julia. On the NBC series, she played Julia Baker, a nurse who was raising her young son after losing her husband. Carroll would go on to earn a Golden Globe Award in 1969 for the role.
“We were saying to the country, ‘We’re going to present a very upper middle-class black woman raising her child, and her major concentration is not going to be about suffering in the ghetto,'” Carroll said of the series back in 1998.
ESSENCE honored Carroll at the 2009 Black Women in Hollywood Awards in California where she was open about her struggles in the industry.
“I’ve had a hard time. I’ve had a rough time. I’m not going to deny it,” she said onstage, before giving advice to other actresses who might be going through the same thing.
“Don’t let it disturb you in any way,” Carroll advised before getting a standing ovation.
Along with earning a Golden Globe, Carroll was nominated for an Oscar and four Emmy Awards. She also earned a Tony Award in 1962 for her role in the musical, No Strings.
The Television Hall of Fame inductee is survived by her daughter, Kay.