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Ellen Holly
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Ellen Holly (born January 16, 1931) is an African-American actress.
She began her career on stage, but began making films and appearing on TV. She appeared on In the Heat of the Night (TV series) and Naked City, but is best remembered by long-time soap fans as actress-turned-Judge Clara "Carla" Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, a role she played from 1968 to 1980, and again from 1983 to 1985.
She came to the attention of Agnes Nixon, the creator of One Life to Live, after writing a letter to the editor of the New York Times about what it was like to be a light-skinned Negro. Miss Nixon crated the role of Carla and offered Miss Holly a role on her new show.
When she began on One Life to Live in October 1968, it was not revealed to the audience that she was an African-American. Her character, a touring actress, had an Italian surname. Later, a Caucasian physician, Dr. James Craig (then played by Robert Milli) became engaged to marry her. But she was falling for an African-American doctor (played by playwright Peter DeAnda) on the show. When the two kissed on screen, it was reported that the switchboards at ABC were busy by fans who thought that the show had shown an African-American and Caucasian kissing.
Carla, her One Life to Live character, later married an African-American police officer, Ed Hall (played mostly by Al Freeman, Jr.) and adopted a son. She and Ed later divorced, and she remarried a new physician in Llanview, the setting of One Life to Live.
After the death of her second husband, her character became involved romantically (both on screen and in real life) with the character Alec Lownes (played by Roger Hill).
After her dismissal from One Life to Live in 1985, Miss Holly played a judge on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light.
An accomplished writer as well as actress, she wrote many of the storyline for Carla on One Life to Live. She was one of the few African-American writers in the soap opera genre. She later wrote a book, One Life: The Autobiography of an African American actress.