{"id":63811,"date":"2022-05-13T02:04:35","date_gmt":"2022-05-13T02:04:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=63811"},"modified":"2022-05-13T02:04:36","modified_gmt":"2022-05-13T02:04:36","slug":"the-box-looking-back-at-daytimes-first-black-leading-actress-ellen-holly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=63811","title":{"rendered":"The Box: Looking Back At Daytime’s First Black Leading Actress Ellen Holly"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Box: Looking Back At Daytime’s First Black Leading Actress Ellen Holly<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

A Hot Set<\/a>
\n2020-07-21<\/p>\n

Hillary Lynch<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a>
ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ellen Holly<\/a> comes from a long line of trailblazers- her family tree includes Susan Smith McKinney Steward<\/a>, the first Black woman to graduate from medical school in the state of New York<\/a> (the third in the United States<\/a> overall) and Sylvanus Smith, the first Black person to address Congress at the Lincoln Memorial<\/a>– so it\u2019s no surprise that she is a trailblazer herself. Her portrayal of Carla Gray on the Agnes Nixon<\/a> soap opera One Life to Live<\/em><\/a> marked a major moment in entertainment history, as she became the first Black leading actress in daytime television. Her inclusion on the soap was monumental, giving the daytime television viewing populace a rare opportunity to watch a Black television character in a major, meaningful role.<\/p>\n

Carla Gray is first introduced on One Life to Live<\/em> in 1968 as Carla Benari, an Italian American woman who is on the brink of a complete nervous breakdown. The cause of her mental health issue is later revealed to be from the inner conflict she faces as a light-skinned Black woman who ran away when she was young and has been passing for white<\/a> ever since. The irony of the role was not lost on Holly, who referenced the fact that Black actresses avoid trying to pass for white. At the same time, this was the only role on camera that was typically awarded to light-skinned Black actresses- and even then, these roles often went to white actresses. Irony aside, Carla Gray was huge. Upon the show\u2019s revelation that the Italian Carla Benari was actually the Black Carla Gray, ratings spiked, and it was clear that Agnes Nixon had struck television gold with her character\u2019s unique storyline…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Box: Looking Back At Daytime’s First Black Leading Actress Ellen Holly A Hot Set 2020-07-21 Hillary Lynch ABC PHOTO ARCHIVES Ellen Holly comes from a long line of trailblazers- her family tree includes Susan Smith McKinney Steward, the first Black woman to graduate from medical school in the state of New York (the third […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,24,8,20,27],"tags":[33503,17906,33500,33501,33502,33499],"class_list":["post-63811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-arts","category-media-archive","category-usa","category-wanted","tag-a-hot-set","tag-abc","tag-agnes-nixon","tag-ellen-holly","tag-ellen-virginia-holly","tag-hillary-lynch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63811"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63811\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63815,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63811\/revisions\/63815"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}