Carla Gray (original) (raw)

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Carla Gray is a fictional character from the American soap opera One Life to Live, played by actress Ellen Holly. 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. Carla was a lighter-skinned Black American passing as a white woman (specifically an Italian American). 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. (en)

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Former, regular

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dbr:Agnes_Nixon

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dbr:Sadie_Gray

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dbr:Ellen_Holly

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dbr:Arizona

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dbr:One_Life_to_Live

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wiki-commons:Special:FilePath/Ellen_Holly_as_Carla_Gray,_September_1975.jpg?width=300

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dbr:Josh_Hall_(One_Life_to_Live)

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left (en)
right (en)

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Micki Grant as Peggy Nolan in Another World (en)
Nancy Hsueh as Mia Elliott in Love is a Many Splendored Thing (en)

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Hazel Scott (en)

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#A4DDED (en)

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1 (xsd:integer)

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dbr:List_of_One_Life_to_Live_characters

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dbr:Agnes_Nixon

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0001-10-07 (xsd:gMonthDay)

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88.0

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Micki Grant and Nancy Hsueh , like Ellen Holly, were pioneers in diversified storytelling on U.S. daytime television. Micki Grant's Another World character, Peggy Nolan, was created by Agnes Nixon. (en)

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Female (en)

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dbr:Jared_Hall

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Ellen Holly as Carla Gray, September 1975.jpg (en)
Micki Grant Another World 1968 .JPG (en)
Love Is a Many Splendored Thing Press Photo of Nancy Hsueh.jpg (en)

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1985-12-16 (xsd:date)

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dbr:Sadie_Gray

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Carla Gray (en)

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Lawyer (en)
(en)
Secretary (en)
Actress (en)

dbp:portrayer

dbr:Ellen_Holly

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"Agnes Nixon is a genius. She isn't just a wonderful writer, she is a genius." (en)
"[In] the fifth month in which everybody's invested all their energy in learning about these people for these five months, that day, on a Friday — deliberately chosen for Friday — the cameras started following a whole bunch of people during their daily [routines], including Carla and Sadie...And at the end of the day, five minutes before that, Sadie and Carla Benari meet in front of Anna Wolek's door. [Sadie's] visiting her neighbor. [Carla's] going there for some other reason. They stand there and they look at each other and Sadie looks at me and says, "Clara!" And I say, "Mama!" Cut to black! Well, everybody got on the phone that week: "Did you see that on Friday? Clara, that dead girl, that was supposed to...?" ...The world checked in on Monday to get the backstory. The backstory was that she was an actress and she wanted to be a big star and she went to the bright lights of the big city and found out nobody could give a damn, and also it wasn't helpful to be Black, so she started passing for white, and that didn't do too well either, and she ended up on some lousy bus-and-truck tour that had come back to town." (en)
"A woman came to town with a mystery. Everybody knew she was important, because she was on almost every day of the week. So they knew that she was going to be some kind of major story but they couldn't figure out what she was gonna be, because she wasn't the usual blonde, blue-eyed leading female. She looked very...exotic. And she had this exotic name, Carla Benari." (en)
"Who else could better empathize with Nixon's challenges in writing from Carla's perspective ? Who else could appear white enough on a Friday to outrage fans that had watched her kiss a black character, yet black enough on the following Monday to outrage the same rapt bigots who are suddenly "offended" at the memory of her romantic relationship with a white character? And of course, who else had a theater resume that was as strong as hers, that could "justify" creation of the new role and then go on to succeed as the first black lead in daytime?" (en)

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dbr:Arizona

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One Life to Live (en)

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—Ellen Holly on the five-month buildup and eventual payoff of the early "Carla Benari" storyline, Television Academy Foundation (en)
—Ellen Holly on the beginnings of her One Life to Live character, Television Academy Foundation (en)
—Ellen Holly on the One Life to Live creator, Archive of American Television (en)
—Kevin Mulcahy, Jr. of the industry blog We Love Soaps, who interviewed Ellen Holly in 2012. (en)

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Carla Gray is a fictional character from the American soap opera One Life to Live, played by actress Ellen Holly. Carla appeared from October 1968 through December 1980, and from May 1983 through December 1985. (en)

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