What was Diahann Carroll's Net Worth?
Diahann Carroll was an actress, singer, and model who had a net worth of $20 million at the time of her death in October 2019 at the age of 84. Diahann Carroll came to prominence in the 1950s in the black-cast Hollywood films "Carmen Jones" and "Porgy and Bess." She went on to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical for "No Strings," making her the first African-American woman to win that award. Among her many other credits, Carroll won a Golden Globe Award for her groundbreaking television sitcom "Julia," and earned an Academy Award nomination for her lead performance in the 1974 film "Claudine."
Early Life and Education
Diahann Carroll was born as Carol Diann Johnson on July 17, 1935 in the Bronx borough of New York City to nurse Mabel and subway conductor John. She grew up in Harlem, and attended Music and Art High School. Supportive of her passions, Carroll's parents enrolled her in dance, singing, and modeling classes. By the time she was 15, she was already modeling for Ebony magazine. After graduating from high school, Carroll studied sociology at New York University. She ended up dropping out to pursue her career in show business.
Career Beginnings
When Carroll was 18, she competed on the DuMont Television Network talent show "Chance of a Lifetime," and took home the top prize for her rendition of the song "Why Was I Born?" Due to the exposure she earned through the program, she landed engagements at various nightclubs in New York City.
Film Career
In 1954, Carroll made her feature film debut in the all-black musical "Carmen Jones," starring Dorothy Dandridge, Harry Belafonte, and Pearl Bailey and directed by Otto Preminger. She reunited with Preminger in 1959 for his adaptation of Gershwin's musical "Porgy and Bess," starring Dandridge and Sidney Poitier in the titular roles. In the early 1960s, Carroll had a brief role in Anatole Litvak's romantic drama "Goodbye Again," and a bigger supporting role in Martin Ritt's musical romance "Paris Blues," starring Sidney Poitier and Paul Newman. Later in the decade, she appeared in Preminger's drama "Hurry Sundown," with Jane Fonda and Michael Caine. Carroll also starred in the neo-noir crime drama "The Split."
Carroll gave one of her most acclaimed film performances in the 1974 dramedy "Claudine," costarring James Earl Jones. She played the titular character, a single black Harlem mother living on welfare and raising six children. For her performance, Carroll earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, making her only the fourth black woman to be nominated in that category. She didn't have another role on the big screen again until 1991, when she appeared in the musical drama "The Five Heartbeats." Later, in 1997, Carroll played Elzora in the acclaimed Southern Gothic drama "Eve's Bayou." Her final two film roles were in the 2013 romantic comedy "Peeples" and the 2016 biographical drama "The Masked Saint."
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Television Career
After competing on the talent show "Chance of a Lifetime," Carroll appeared in episodes of "The Red Skelton Hour" and "General Electric Theater." In the late 1950s and into the 60s, she made regular appearances on several talk and variety shows, including "The Jack Paar Tonight Show," "The Ed Sullivan Show," and "The Garry Moore Show." Carroll began her most famous television role in 1968, playing the titular character on the NBC sitcom "Julia." The groundbreaking show was the first weekly series to star an African-American actress who played someone other than a domestic worker. For her role as aerospace company nurse Julia Baker, Carroll won a Golden Globe Award and earned an Emmy Award nomination. "Julia" ran for three seasons through early 1971. Later in the decade, Carroll appeared in the miniseries "Roots: The Next Generations" and the television film "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings." She also hosted "The Diahann Carroll Show," a series of four musical variety specials.
In 1982, Carroll starred in the television film "Sister, Sister." She landed her next main role in 1984 when she joined the cast of the primetime soap opera "Dynasty" at the end of its fourth season. Playing mixed-race diva Dominique Deveraux, Carroll remained on the show through the seventh season in 1987. Meanwhile, she appeared as Deveraux on the short-lived spinoff series "The Colbys." In 1989, Carroll joined the sitcom "A Different World" in the recurring role of Marion Gilbert, and earned an Emmy Award nomination. She appeared in several television films the next decade, including "Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years," and played Ida Grayson in "Lonesome Dove: The Series." Commencing the 2000s, Carroll was in the television film "Livin' for Love: The Natalie Cole Story." She went on to play recurring roles in the series "The Court," "Grey's Anatomy," and "White Collar." In 2010, Carroll appeared in two Lifetime movie adaptations of novels by Patricia Cornwell: "At Risk" and "The Front."
Theater Career
The same year she debuted on film, Carroll made her Broadway debut in the musical "House of Flowers." Her next role on Broadway was in the 1962 musical "No Strings," for which she won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, a first for an African-American woman. After a break from the stage, Carroll returned in the late 1970s to appear in "Same Time, Next Year." Her only Broadway credit the following decade was "Agnes of God." In the 1990s, Carroll appeared in a Los Angeles production of "Love Letters," a Toronto production of "Sunset Boulevard," and an off-Broadway production of "The Vagina Monologues." Her final theater credits were "Bubbling Brown Sugar," "On Golden Pond," and "Both Sides Now."
Relationships
Carroll was married a total of four times. Her first husband was record producer Monte Kay, whom she wed in 1956. The pair had a daughter named Suzanne before divorcing in 1963. During their marriage, Carroll began a nine-year affair with actor Sidney Poitier, who was also married at the time. She went on to date British television host and journalist David Frost from 1970 to 1973; they were engaged but broke it off.
Carroll married her second husband, Fred Glusman, in February of 1973, and divorced him in June on account of physical abuse. She next married Jet magazine managing editor Robert DeLeon in 1975, and moved to Chicago to be where he worked. After he quit his job, the couple moved to Oakland. DeLeon was killed in a car crash in 1977. Carroll's fourth and final husband was singer Vic Damone, whom she married in 1987. The relationship was tumultuous, resulting in a legal separation in 1991, a subsequent reconciliation, and finally a divorce in 1996.
Death
In 1997, Carroll was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing nine weeks of radiation therapy, she was declared cancer free. In October of 2019, Carroll passed away from cancer at her home in West Hollywood, California. She was 84 years of age.
