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TV
Guide - March 23th, 1985
Diahann Carroll -
A new life on Dynasty
From
her early days of racial pioneering to recent ones of career decline,
the actress has lived through stormy times ~ both professionally and
personally.
The
scene would never work on Dynasty. Too subtle, for one thing: no
crashing confrontaions, revelations or conflagrations. And the scenery
is all wrong: a blank, cramped makeup cubicle in the back of Merv
Griffin's Hollywood production center. And worst of all, the star of our
little vignette, far from having the best lines, is stuck with a mere
reaction shot.
For
this is real life and we'll just have to make do. Diahann Carroll,
better known these days as Dominique Devereaux, the first black vixen on
prime-time television, is extremely nervous. At age 49, she's receiving
a Career Achievement Award at a ceremony taped for syndication and
sponsored by Ebony magazine. A few feet away, clothed to the nines, sit
several hundred or so pillars of the black business and entertainment
community.
Carroll's
relationship with these powerful people has been a complex and often
strained one. "I've been working on my speech for days," she
says, a bit grimly, poring over her set of typed index cards. But should
a vision of 80s elegance worry about falling on her face? Glancing
anxiously at a TV monitor, Carroll notices that the stage is mounted via
steep and slippery steps.
"Five
minutes," says someone and her entourage prepares to leave for
their audience seats. The door swings open and in walk The Jeffersons'
Isabel Sanford, back from her stint on camera.
Carroll
embraces Sanford, who's perspiring from the hot lights. "Going up
there," Carroll asks, "is there anyone to help you?"
Sanford
laughs, then shakes her head. "Those steps are murder," she
says. "You fall down, you get up, then they send someone to help
you."
Diahann
Carroll's eyes widen a bit, the corners of her mouth turn down a
millimeter. She says nothing, nor does she need to. A nod ~ and a brief moment of introspection ~ are enough.
Enough,
on a purely practical level, to plan a careful yet forthright ascent.
Enough, too, to conjure up a more complicated subject: the actress' own
personal rises and falls; her stormy and passionate relationship with
success. The last years have been hard ones for Diahann Carroll. Not
even talent and beauty, not even a high-paying role on a top-rated show,
can wipe away the pain and ambiguities of the past.
Not,
alas, for a woman as complex and intelligent as Carroll. In her Dynasty
dressing room, stuck into her makeup mirror, are two pictures of
herself. "I look at those two ladies," she says in the
dressing room one day, "to see where I've come from and where I've
gone." On the right, a sultry, bare-shouldered portrait taken
recently. On the left, a curious artifact: an aging post card of a
smiling, bubble-coiffed young black woman ~ "glamorous stage and
television star (as it says on the reverse) Diahann Carroll,"
costumed for her old series, Julia.
The
distance between the two? "A lot of hard work,"says Carroll.
Also controversy, failure, triumph and tragedy. Praise as a paragon of
her race; denunciation as a tool of American racism. Popularity as a
fine singer and actress; obscurity as a semi-washed-up performer.
Notoreity as a bold proponent of interracial romance; and heartbreak as
the wife of a black man in a conventional marriage. Through it all, a
dogged streak of bad decisions, bad advice and just plain bad luck.
So
much for the simple stories: of the Hollywood Comeback, or the Brave
Crusader for Older Black Women. "It's just so stressful to always
have to break down barriers," says Carroll, before heading down to
the Dynasty sound stage. She looks at the two pictures of herself.
"Those two women up there think much the same. I'm a worker. I'm an
actor. I don't think most people understand that."
What
also must be understood is that this dignified woman has been, in
effect, riding the rapids for
much of her life. "No, I don't hink her career has gone the way I'd
have liked it to," says Roger Gerber, her long-time agent, personal
manager and friend. To gerber, success as Dominique Devereaux, Blake
Carrington's illegitimate half-sister, means respect, admiration, and ~
finally ~ stability for his client. He even sees the conniving Dominique
~ working relentlessly to stake her genetic claim to the Carrington
millions ~ as a positive figure. "No I don't think Dominique is a
nasty person," says Gerber. "I just think she wants to reclaim
her birthright."
By
Andy Meisler |
