Diahann Carroll Biography

Fast Facts

• Worked as a model and nightclub singer as a teenager
• Dropped out of college in 1954 and made her Broadway (House of Flowers) and film (Carmen Jones) debuts that same year
• Began releasing albums in the late 1950s
• Became the first black actress to win a Tony award for best actress (No Strings in 1962), star in a TV series (Julia in 1968) and host a variety show (The Diahann Carroll Show in 1976)
• Portrayed Dominique Devereaux in Dynasty and its spin-off, The Colbys, in the 1980s
• Starred as the iconic Norma Desmond in Andrew Lloyd Webber's musical version of Sunset Boulevard
• Launched a line of wigs, clothing and accessories in 1997
• Is a breast-cancer survivor
• Played recurring character Jane Burke on Grey's Anatomy
• Released an autobiography (Diahann!) in 1986 and a memoir (The Legs Are the Last to Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying, and Other Things I Learned the Hard Way) in 2008