Collection context
Summary
- Creators:
- Carroll, Diahann
- Abstract:
- Over the course of her career, actress and singer Diahann Carroll has been involved in a number of stage, motion picture, and television projects as well a business and philanthropic activities. The bulk of the collection includes musical arrangements, clippings, and photographs documenting assorted stage, motion picture, and television projects. Additionally there is a small amount correspondence, scrapbooks, awards, and ephemera.
- Extent:
- 58 Linear Feet (24 boxes, 2 shoe boxes, 92 flat boxes, and 8 oversize flat boxes)
- Language:
- Materials are in English.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Diahann Carroll papers (Collection PASC-M 260). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
The collection consists of materials related to the career of actress and singer, Diahann Carroll. The bulk of the collection includes musical arrangements, clippings, and photographs documenting assorted stage, motion picture, and television projects. Additionally there is a small amount correspondence, scrapbooks, awards, and ephemera. Musical arrangements represent assorted stage performances including solo performances and performances with Vic Damone. Among the motion picture productions represented are Carmen Jones and Claudine; television projects documented include Dynasty , Having Our Say , Julia , and Lonesome Dove ; stage performances represented are House of Flowers, No Strings, Sunset Boulevard, and Diahann Carroll and Vic Damon in Concert. With few exceptions, notably missing from the collection are scripts and production information representing Carroll's numerous acting roles for stage, film, and television.
The bulk of the correspondence are notes sent to Diahann Carroll from correspondents such as Judy Collins, Bing Crosby, Sammy Davis, Jr., Berry Gordy, Quincy Jones, Henry Kissinger, and Barbara Walters, among others. Additionally there are invitations to attend White House receptions from George H. Bush, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton and a thank you note from John F. Kennedy. Also included are materials from Diahann Carroll's fashion venture projects, materials documenting what appears to be an unpublished autobiography book project, a copyedited manuscript for the book Diahann: An Autobiography, and a very small amount of material related to Carroll's personal life.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Carol Diahann Johnson (later changed to Diahann Carroll), was born in the Bronx, New York on July 17, 1935. At a young age she received a scholarship to attend New York's High School of Music and Art. While studying sociology at NYU, she modeled and began singing in New York nightclubs and on television. In 1954, she debuted on Broadway with Pearl Bailey in House of Flowers, and received a Tony nomination for her performance. The same year, she appeared in the motion picture Carmen Jones. In 1962 she received a Tony Award for her performance in No Strings, the first for an African American woman.
In 1968, Carroll became the first black actress in television history to star in her own series, Julia, for NBC. She won a Golden Globe (1968) and earned an Emmy nomination (1969), for her performance on the series. Public criticism that the show was not a realistic portrayal of African American life led Carroll to decline to renew her contract with the show in 1970. In early 1974 Carroll was featured in the motion picture Claudine for which she earned an Academy Award nomination. In 1984, Carroll joined the television show Dynasty as Dominique Devereaux, the first major prime-time soap opera role for an African American female.
Over the course of her career Carroll has been involved in a number of live performances, stage, motion picture, and television projects. Stage credits include Agnes of God, Love Letters, Same Time Next Year, and Sunset Boulevard. Carroll's film credits include Porgy and Bess (1959), Goodbye Again (1961), Paris Blues (1961), Hurry Sundown (1967), The Split (1968), The Five Heartbeats (1991), and Eve's Bayou (1997). Her numerous television credits include series and specials such as The Colbys, General Electric Theater, Lonesome Dove, Naked City, Peter Gunn, and Touched by an Angel, and TV movies such as Having Our Say, The Natalie Cole Story, A Perry Mason Mystery, and Sister, Sister.
In 1997, Carroll created a signature line of clothes and a line of wigs for African American women. The following year, Carroll was diagnosed with breast cancer and became an outspoken advocate for early detection, and she has served as spokeswoman for the National Women's Cancer Research Alliance. Diahann Carroll has earned many honors including the Women in Film Crystal and Lucy awards, NAACP Image award for best actress, and induction into Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame.
- Acquisition information:
- Gift of Diahann Carroll.
- Processing information:
-
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
Processed by Kevin Awakuni and Alexandra Apolloni under the supervision of Julie Graham, October 2014.
- Arrangement:
-
Arranged in the following series:
- Personal and Biographical
- Motion Picture Projects
- Television Projects
- Stage Projects
- Musical Arrangements
- Fashion Projects
- Correspondence
- Photographs
- Scrapbooks
- Book Projects
- Awards
- Printed Material
- Sound Recordings
- Physical / technical requirements:
-
CONTAINS DIGITAL AND AUDIOVISUAL MATERIALS: This collection contains both processed and unprocessed digital and audiovisual materials. For information about the access status of the material that you are looking for, refer to the Physical Characteristics and Technical Requirements note at the series and file levels. All requests to access processed digital and audiovisual materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Physical location:
- Stored off-site. All requests to access special collections material must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Open for research. All requests to access special collections materials must be made in advance using the request button located on this page.
- Terms of access:
-
Property rights to the physical objects belong to UCLA Library Special Collections. All other rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
- Preferred citation:
-
[Identification of item], Diahann Carroll papers (Collection PASC-M 260). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988