Carla Gray - Knowledge

783: 512:) romance storyline as a friend of Jenny's and as the steadfast confidante of longtime friend Anna Wolek. In late 1975, Josh becomes involved with a girl, Bernice, who is a bad influence on him, asking him for expensive concert tickets he can't afford on his part-time job's wages. Ed gives Josh the money for the concert tickets, but informs him that he won't be giving him any more money if he asks again. Josh would later get fired from his job when Bernice asks him to stay with her to study for a test instead of showing up to his work shift. Carla, tired of being the disciplinarian and afraid of Josh growing up to resent her, insists that Ed put his foot down with Josh about what a bad influence Bernice is. To distract Josh from Bernice, Ed gets him a job working construction on the new nightclub Tony's Place, finally putting Carla's mind at ease. 425:

sympathetic to Carla's predicament. If anything, he is even angrier than Sadie at Carla's ruse. However, he does give her one more chance after she breaks up with Jim. Price's mother ruins the relationship as she does not like Carla. Price accepts a job overseas soon afterward and leaves Llanview at the end of 1970. Carla is able to mend fences with her mother, who stresses that she must be proud of her heritage. Taking her mother's advice to heart, Carla embraces being Black, and changes her surname back to "Gray" while keeping the first name "Carla." (For her part, Sadie would continue to call Carla "Clara", signifying full and proud public recognition of her daughter after previously letting people believe she was dead, and as Carla had embraced her heritage, she would respond to "Clara" from Sadie.)

774: 932:"Who else could better empathize with Nixon's challenges in writing from Carla's perspective (Ms. Holly even wrote some parts of the script!)? 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 (instead of another white character) and then go on to succeed as the first black lead in daytime?" 398:" 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 , 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. visiting her neighbor. 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: 1129:, her new soap opera, to be its producer. Once Slater arranged a lunch where Arley had the chance to meet Holly, Holly felt immediately at ease. Jean Arley would bring Holly and the character of Carla back into the show in the spring of 1983. Holly insisted on a salary of $ 150,000 per year, twice the amount she made when she left in 1980, despite knowing that other actors on the program were making more than $ 1 million at that time. Even though ABC originally tried to negotiate, the network paid Holly the amount she asked for. 3413: 1178:

similarly puzzled by Rauch's request to change Holly's voice, Rauch informed Holly that he "couldn't quite put finger" on why he disliked her voice. Holly believed that Rauch's pivot from material infractions to perceived infractions was his way of breaking her spirit, as Holly immediately changed her hairstyle upon her first reprimand, but could not change her voice as she received no constructive feedback with which she could work.

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and is now head of the housekeeping staff at the hospital; my ex-husband on the show is a policeman, and Arthur plays a brilliant heart surgeon...I think we've opened up our viewers' heads a little bit more to the variety that exists in the Black race. And the more that happens, the slower somebody will be — when they're confronted with any given Black person — to jump to conclusions about who and what that person is."

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happened to Holly while working on the program before. Joseph Stuart had given Holly tough critiques toward the end of her first stint playing Carla, but those critiques always occurred privately, behind closed doors. She also intuited that storyline options for the character of Carla promised to her by Arley, like one that would have involved Carla adopting children and raising them as a single mother, would not be going forward.

402:...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." 1087:

Holly would later learn that Quinlan being replaced by Joseph Stuart was agreed upon by many higher-ups in the program's hierarchy, including Agnes Nixon, who considered both producers her protégés. Quinlan's successor Stuart was tougher in critiquing Holly's acting than Quinlan had been. This was partly due to Holly's letter to ABC executives, which Stuart knew about and saw as a direct personal attack.

1158:. In her book, Holly is vocal about her frustration at her character being pushed into the background to make way for new white characters, and about being summarily dismissed in 1985 by Rauch, who by that time had become executive producer and writing consultant. Rauch fired every Black lead or recurring character on the show during his 1984-91 tenure. (Rauch's eventual successor, 679: 351:"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." 40: 905:, also created by Agnes Nixon, the only other soap opera at the time to focus consistently on providing storylines for Black characters. By the 1980s, it was estimated that 12% of all African American households watched soap operas, twice the rate of white households, for which actress Ellen Holly was given partial credit. (In fact it was Nixon's sister soap 393:

people think Clara was dead, as opposed to actively living with the shame of a daughter who denied her heritage. Carla herself is mortified to know Sadie already knows the truth — but she's not mortified enough to end her ruse there and then. Although heartbroken after their first encounter in years, Sadie chooses not to reveal her daughter's secret.

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we're dropping you. You're just not worth keeping," and it's always a blow, but when I thought I could stand up and keep straight, I stood up. It took me a moment for me to be sure I wasn't going to fall down. I said, "I see. Thank you!" and I left. I wasn't about to give a sadist an orgasm by begging for my job!

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s first producer, Doris Quinlan, and was emotionally impacted when she left the program in 1977, so much so that Holly and Al Freeman, Jr. wrote a letter to ABC executives on behalf of the show's cast which attempted to lobby to keep Quinlan's job safe, but the duo were unsuccessful in their efforts.

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Holly was intrigued by Nixon's idea to examine this mother-daughter relationship, with which Nixon said she had "the luxury of time" in setting the scene and exploring the ideological motivations of each character involved. These "ideological motivation" mini-case studies would manifest themselves in

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in a television interview. Kitt expressed her own frustration at facing prejudice from both white and Black audiences because of her light-skinned complexion, and the feeling of not belonging to either group. (Even Carla's surname "Gray" reflects the in-between nature of the character, not "Black" or

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at the same time that Carla finds her life on the line. This forces them to postpone the wedding as Carla is first nearly killed when her brakes fail while she is driving, and again when she is lured to the jeweler's by a mysterious man who poses as a policeman. Carla meets with the man, who points a

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magazine, "There are enormous stretches in this country where they don't know anything about Black people...Our viewers tend to regard us as neighbors. People at the supermarket, total strangers, will throw their arms around you and treat you as a neighbor...My mother on the show has been a domestic

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it was relevant and because it explained to viewers the sociological motivations for such a denial of heritage and race due to the rejections suffered by the young woman from both the black and white communities. The ultimate tragedy we were presenting was simply another instance of man's cruelty to

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The character of Carla (despite debuting in episode 61, broadcast on October 7, 1968, months after the show's premiere) was conceptualized in Agnes Nixon's original show Bible, and as such is considered part of the story of Llanview from the beginning. Nixon based Carla and Sadie's original story on

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While Carla and Sadie try to work out their issues, Carla becomes embroiled in a love triangle. Her employer Jim Craig also falls in love with her, and she reciprocates his feelings. Carla divulges her secret to Jim. Not only is he fine with her true racial makeup, he asks her to marry him, allowing

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According to Holly, Rauch would publicly reprimand her for the slightest infractions, or even perceived infractions. In one instance, Rauch ordered Holly take voice lessons because her voice was "an offense to the public that should be taken off the air." After Holly consulted a voice coach who was

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having the highest number of non-white viewers), she faced racist attitudes behind the camera. These included being paid less than white actresses on the program (Holly was initially paid $ 300 per week as outlined in her 1968-69 contract, rising to only $ 325 per week in 1969-70 and $ 350 per week

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for one year. Holly originally had reservations about working on a soap opera, as the bulk of her acting roles up to that point had been in the New York theater scene, but she took the job anyway, believing that her storyline with Lillian Hayman's Sadie Gray was very important and should be told on

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apartment, Carla runs into Sadie. It is abruptly revealed that "Carla Benari" is Clara Gray, who had not died but run away from home at an early age. Sadie was furious to learn that her daughter was pretending to be white, as Sadie knew about Carla's whereabouts prior to her arrival and instead let

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Holly also took umbrage with Stuart's handling of the love triangle storyline she devised, particularly the hiring of Arthur Burghardt as she explicitly voiced her disapproval over the planned casting choice and even had another actor in mind to play the role of Dr. Jack Scott, who Stuart rejected

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as well. She would play a famous aunt of Carla's who would sing a song to the newlyweds. Hazel Scott wrote the song herself and appeared in the October 3 and 4 episodes of 1973, in which Carla and Ed were to marry. The marriage ceremony itself was broadcast on October 5, 1973. The wedding was also

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when new executive producer Rauch reprimanded Holly publicly for her choice of hairstyle in front of the crew and other actors, alleging that shoulder-length hair was "unprofessional" for an Assistant District Attorney. This dressing-down, in front of crew and actors, was something that had never

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in Carla's 1979 wedding storyline; Holly alleged that Slezak thought her participation as matron-of-honor in Carla's wedding was an attempt to "give luster" to the storyline. Holly also alleged that the character of Viki Riley was placed into the storyline in an attempt to endear Viki more to the

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my contract was almost over...7 a.m., this is how sadistic he was. He could have told me this at the end of the day. 7 a.m., he calls me out of makeup, I'm looking like the Bride of Frankenstein, with my hair all up in curlers...and I sit down in the chair, and he says, "When your contract's up,

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in 1972, Nixon wrote, "For any dramatic entertainment to be a success it must be relevant...Perhaps the most gratifying aspect of "relevance" is the way it has permitted us to incorporate into our "soaps" many socially significant issues, to educate viewers while we are entertaining them... For

480:) comes to her rescue. The man after Carla is revealed to be Lester Brock, the brother of Earl Brock, who blamed Ed for the murder of his brother. Ed and Carla make it to the altar in October and, surrounded by friends and family, they are married. Carla and Ed also initiate proceedings to adopt 424:

Carla briefly accepts the proposal but eventually returns Jim's ring, after realizing she would only be marrying him in order to keep perpetuating a lie. After breaking up with Jim, Carla comes clean to everyone in Llanview about her true heritage, including Price. Price is not in the least

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was making its debut was to tell stories the other two networks did not. That particular concept — to tell stories other people hadn't told or wouldn't tell — was a hallmark of Agnes Nixon's storytelling. Indeed, when ABC first promoted the series in the trade publication

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almost two years we told the story of a young Negro woman of light pigmentation who passed as white. This sequence was done primarily because it furnished us with an intense, absorbing drama that attracted viewers. But the mail response substantiated our belief that it was absorbing

523:), a surgeon who arrived in Llanview in 1978 and operated on Ed to fix his heart condition. Holly, with the input of Al Freeman, Jr., wrote a 30-page outline for the two-year love triangle storyline, which was approved (albeit with some changes) by then-head of daytime programming, 946:

Throughout her fourteen-and-a-half years on the program, Holly was given varying degrees of autonomy in the sculpting of the character of Carla and the storylines in which she would be involved. Holly's input was solicited at first because there were no Black writers on the

549:, played by Anthony Call) to take her back. Even though he acknowledges that he will always love and care for her, he cannot take her back after her marriage to Jack Scott. Feeling the need to start over, Carla leaves Llanview. She returns in 1983 and, after having attended 572:. After wrapping up odds and ends in town, Carla leaves with her mother Sadie and moves to Arizona. By 1987, Ed and their son Josh would also leave town and move to Arizona to be with them. Sadie dies off-screen in the 1990s. Ed returns to Llanview in 2000 after grandson 533:

magazine's October 1979 issue. Jack, however, was always planned to be a short-term character by Holly's design, and was killed off in 1980. During this time, Carla and her mother Sadie found themselves in supporting roles in the storyline involving heroine

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the story not just with Carla and Sadie, but also characters involved in the storyline, such as Anna Wolek, Jim Craig, Price Trainor, and even peripheral characters such as Karen Martin who served as friend to both Carla and Anna. According to Holly, in

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As Carla's storyline played out on TV screens in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, viewers were watching the first non-white lead character to be featured in a front-burning, sustained storyline for several years on a soap opera. To that end,

298:). 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 824:

and had attempted to integrate African American characters and actors into these shows, but with limited success. The most enduring of Nixon's first Black characters was recurring character Peggy Nolan, a legal secretary-turned-attorney on

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were thrilling. After that, it's just a question of being a fireplug that keeps getting pissed on by junkyard dogs." Holly decided to start a theater workshop with the ultimate goal of producing Broadway and Off-Broadway plays with

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African American viewership demographic. In the same interview series, when asked about this specific situation, Slezak briefly complimented Holly's ability as an actress and said that she was "strong-willed" and "intelligent".

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to push the wedding into the fall. In its place the story of Lester Brock attempting to kill Carla on numerous occasions would test Carla and Ed's commitment to each other for a final time before they were to marry.

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Unfortunately, Holly depicts a backstage story that diverges far from the ideal storyline shown on air. She claims that despite Carla Gray's storylines being major reasons for the series' early success (with

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when it was revealed that she, too, was Black. Eventually, she settled down with the beloved Llanview PD detective who was played by daytime's first Black Outstanding Lead Actor Emmy winner, Al Freeman Jr."

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characters. Holly posits that, as a result of their primary role in the celebration while newer and perhaps more popular actors were sidelined, ABC fired Jean Arley, the producer who brought her back to

373:) begins treating a young woman named "Carla Benari," whose illness seems to be psychosomatic — her physical symptoms stem from some unstated mental conflict. Carla, who is assumed to be 280:. Carla appeared from October 1968 through December 1980, and from May 1983 through December 1985. The role is recognized as the first Black lead character on a U.S. daytime soap opera. 1071:

only to find that in the elapsed time, her dressing room was given away to a white actress; and discriminatory treatment while taking part in a feature and photoshoot on the history of

346:) but makes several passing references to a daughter, Clara, who she vaguely says is "lost to her." Anna and the rest of the Woleks assume that Sadie's daughter Clara is dead. 1107:

in December 1980. In a 2013 interview, Holly said of her decision to leave, "I fled the show because my health was literally going down the tubes. The first two years of

918: 448:" workingman who initially considers Carla to be a stuck-up princess. In time though, Ed proves to be the love of Carla's life, and the two became engaged in 1973. 744:

on August 10, 1969; in the op-ed Holly writes at length about her experiences as a lighter-skinned Black actress as well as her experiences after she was cast on

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Valley". One press account went as far as to label it a "Soap Opera About Negroes" simply because multiple Black characters would be appearing on the serial.

752:" which was still considered the correct way to refer to African Americans by many in the U.S. at this time. Holly would go on to write seven more op-eds for 2011: 3032: 1145:

in the second half of 1983, and Holly and Lillian Hayman were front-and-center at the festivities as the two actors had played some of Nixon's original

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Joseph Stuart's eventual replacement, Jean Arley, was interested in bringing Carla back into the canvas in Llanview. Holly's friend, casting director

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paved the way for more Black actors and actresses to be given prominent storylines on other daytime soaps. In 1968, the year Holly debuted on

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Carla was one of the original characters created for the show and was featured in a groundbreaking and very controversial storyline about

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magazine which Lillian Hayman was not present for as she was not invited to take part, despite being a main cast member at the time.

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as a network was already committed by the late 1960s to broadcasting programming produced by and for African Americans on their five

2029: 2139:"Ellen Holly on her contract negotiations on "One Life to Live" in the late '60s and early '70s - TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews" 1629: 2092: 1676: 2441: 782: 748:. Of note in the 1969 follow-up op-ed is Holly's (and also ABC's) insistence on using the term "Black" on-screen, as opposed to " 2064:"Ellen Holly, ONE LIFE TO LIVE, Racism & The Soap Opera, Part 2: "India has its Untouchables, America had its Uncastables"" 407:—Ellen Holly on the five-month buildup and eventual payoff of the early "Carla Benari" storyline, Television Academy Foundation 3383: 1849: 1397: 488:), a street kid who Ed had taken in while romancing Carla. Josh soon took the surname Hall and became a son to Ed and Carla. 1003:

Ed Hall and Carla Gray were initially supposed to marry in the summer of 1973. However, several news breaks chronicling the

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for its surface melodrama", and as a result Holly was excited to see the fresh spin Nixon would bring to this age-old tale.

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her a chance to continue publicly as "Carla Benari." The show found itself in another controversy when one ABC affiliate in

3439: 2512: 561:). It takes time for Carla to get over that situation. After Alec is out of the picture, she eventually comes back to Ed. 496:

By the mid-1970s, airtime for Carla, Ed, and Josh progressively diminished. Carla appears in a supporting capacity in the

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At the end of 1980, Carla tearfully begs Ed (who by this time was running for lieutenant governor on the same ticket as

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and works as the manager of housekeeping for Llanview Hospital. Sadie acts mainly as a confidante for troubled heroine

1839: 2704: 2559: 2405: 2326: 2301: 2269: 2237: 1550: 1456: 1322: 2108:"Black History Month Tribute to (But Some of) Daytime's Most Important African-American Characters [PHOTOS]" 851:, as a leading heroine, but the actress and her character Mia Elliott were written out after six months on the air. 2991: 2966: 2889: 2799: 808:

Before Carla Gray, there had been no African American lead characters on any daytime soap opera. Prior to creating

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affiliate. Nevertheless, the controversy attracted much attention and ratings shot up for the then-fledgling soap.

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eventually convinced ABC to hire a Black writer because he wanted to lend more authenticity to Carla's storyline.

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Toward the end of the decade, Carla did get the spotlight in one more love triangle: she divorces Ed to marry Dr.

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In a 2018 interview with the Television Academy Foundation, Holly said she had a feeling she would be fired from

2343: 1976: 2824: 2814: 2479: 1927: 1624: 1245: 1230: 798:(right), like Ellen Holly, were pioneers in diversified storytelling on U.S. daytime television. Micki Grant's 601: 3388: 2864: 2809: 2709: 1825:"Ellen Holly on her New York Times article "How Black Do You Have to Be?" - TelevisionAcademy.com/Interviews" 910: 875: 854: 667: 516: 505: 382: 219: 377:, begins working as Jim's receptionist. Very quickly, Carla begins dating Black American resident physician 2959: 2854: 2769: 2549: 740:

Holly wrote a follow-up op-ed called "Living a White Life — For a While", which was published in the

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on September 15, 1968, called "How Black Do You Have to Be?", in which she decried press coverage of actor

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In 1972, Carla finds herself in another love triangle, this time being courted by high-flying politico

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However, the road to the altar is not an easy one. Ed blames himself for the death of his good friend

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after allowing Holly's preferred actor to audition. Finally, Holly took issue with the prominence of

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A combination of all the aforementioned examples contributed to Holly's decision to step away from

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after a two-and-a-half-year absence and the person who organized the event, and replaced her with

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became the most-watched daytime soap opera among African Americans, followed closely behind by

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received several angry letters decrying the portrayal of a Black man dating a white woman.

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television, while also not wanting to turn down one year's worth of work and steady pay.

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the first on-screen wedding of two African American characters on a U.S. daytime soap.

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allegedly not looking "black enough" to be an acceptable Black addition to the cast of

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has said she was inspired to create the Carla Gray character after seeing singer

539: 501: 437: 332: 3276: 3256: 3150: 3112: 3097: 2981: 2909: 2874: 2734: 2663: 2635: 1448: 1159: 1120: 923: 844: 644: 591:"Agnes Nixon is a genius. She isn't just a wonderful writer, she is a genius." 524: 414: 328: 299: 284: 2789: 2214: 2171: 2138: 1824: 1752: 1420: 3433: 3251: 3233: 3213: 3208: 3077: 2924: 2899: 2834: 2804: 2754: 2744: 2729: 2683: 2612: 2539: 2534: 1444: 1096: 546: 477: 452: 400:"Did you see that on Friday? Clara, that dead girl, that was supposed to...?" 378: 1389:

My Life to Live: How I Became the Queen of Soaps When Men Ruled the Airwaves

1357:"The Box: Looking Back At Daytime's First Black Leading Actress Ellen Holly" 970:, who played Carla's husband Ed Hall, becoming the first Black man to win a 3307: 3302: 3087: 3072: 2949: 2944: 2919: 2879: 2869: 2859: 2794: 2774: 2749: 2673: 2658: 2630: 2625: 2592: 2569: 2554: 1092: 1068: 927:

featured the two actors, who were married in real life, in cover stories.)

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When asked about the cultural impact of Black storylines which aired on

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Carla soon strikes up a friendship with Anna herself. On a visit to the

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in 1970–71); returning from the funeral of her nephew who died of

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made a deal with the show's head-writers to make an appearance on

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and stayed on the canvas for 11 years. Black publications such as

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For the full story of Carla Gray and Ed Hall's relationship, see

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was quickly cast in the role of Carla after Agnes Nixon read her

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A fifteenth anniversary celebration event was held in honor of

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Fictional character in the American soap opera One Life to Live

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