"One Life to Live's" Ellen Holly Dies at 92

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Ellen Holly Dies: "One Life to Live's" First Black Soap Star was 92
by Bruce Haring
December 7, 2023


Ellen Holly, the first Black person to star in a soap opera with her lead role on "One Life to Live", died Wednesday at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx, N.Y. She was 92 and died in her sleep.

Her first roles on television included appearances on The Big Story (1957), The Defenders (1963), Sam Benedict (1963), Dr. Kildare (1964), The Doctors (1963) and The Nurses (1964).



Holly played the groundbreaking character Carla Gray on the hit ABC show "One Life to Live" from 1968 to 1980 and 1983 to 1985.

She was personally chosen for the role by television producer Agnes Nixon after she saw a New York Times opinion piece that Holly wrote, called “How Black Do You Have To Be?” about the difficulty of finding roles as a light-skinned Black woman.



On "One Life to Live", her attempt to come to terms with her racial identity and her love triangle with two doctors — one white, the other Black — helped launch viewership of the nascent soap opera into high ratings.

Holly was featured in such publications as Newsweek, TV Guide, Ebony, Soap Opera Digest and the New York Times. Soon, there were Black story lines on All My Children and General Hospital, helping ABC to dominate daytime for two decades.

https://deadline.com/2023/12/ellen-h...ry-1235657973/