Carla Grey
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| Carla Gray | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One Life to Live | |||||||||
| Portrayed by | Ellen Holly (1968-1981, 1983-1985) [1] [2] | ||||||||
| First appearance | 1968 | ||||||||
| Last appearance | 1985 | ||||||||
| Created by | Agnes Nixon | ||||||||
| Profile | |||||||||
| Aliases | Clara Gray Carla Benari |
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| Gender | Female | ||||||||
| Occupation | Assistant District Attorney | ||||||||
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Carla Gray "Benari" Hall Scott is a fictional character on the American soap opera One Life to Live. The role was portrayed by Ellen Holly from 1968 to 1981 and again from 1983 to 1985. [1] [2]
Carla was one of the original characters created for the show and was featured in a ground-breaking and very controversial storyline about race relations. Carla, a light-skinned African-American, was passing as a Caucasian. The fact that Carla (and her portrayer Ellen Holly) were actually African-American was not revealed to the show's audience until about six months into the show's run. The revelation was a major shock to viewers, and the series was boycotted by several southern affiliates. Nevertheless, the controversy attracted much attention and ratings shot up for the fledgling soap very quickly because of it.
[edit] Carla's storyline
African-American Sadie Gray lived in an apartment next door to the Woleks (one of the central families during OLTL 's early years) and worked as manager of Llanview Hospital's housekeeping department. Sadie acted mainly as a confidante for troubled heroine Anna Wolek, but made several passing references to a daughter that she vaguely said was 'lost to her.' Anna and the rest of the Woleks assumed that Sadie's daughter Clara was dead.
Several weeks into the series' run, Dr. Jim Craig began treating a young woman named Carla Benari, whose illness seemed to be psychosomatic — her physical symptoms stemmed from some unstated mental confilct. Carla (whom everyone assumed to be Italian-American) began working as Jim's receptionist. Very quickly, Carla began dating an African-American intern named Dr. Price Trainor. ABC received several angry letters decrying the portrayal of a black man dating a white woman.
Carla (who had struck up a friendship with Anna herself) went to visit the Wolek apartment and ran into Sadie. It was then abruptly revealed that "Carla Benari" was in fact Clara Grey, 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, and Carla herself was mortified — but not enough to end her ruse there and then. Although heartbroken, Sadie did not reveal her daughter's secret.
While Carla and Sadie tried to work out their issues, Carla became embroiled in a love triangle. Her employer Jim Craig also fell in love with her, and she reciprocated his feelings. (Ironically, the new plot twist resulted in another round of angry letters from viewers who disliked seeing a white man dating a black woman!) Carla divulged her secret to Jim, who not only was fine with it, he asked her to marry him. She briefly accepted the proposal, but eventually returned his ring, after realizing she would only be marrying him in order to keep perpetuating a lie. After breaking up with Jim, Carla came clean to everyone in Llanview about her true heritage, including Price. Unfortunately Price was not in the least sympathetic to Carla's predicament. If anything, he was even angrier than Sadie at Carla's ruse. The revelation ruined their relationship once and for all. Price left town soon afterwards. Carla was able to mend fences with her mother though.
In 1970, Carla found herself in another love triangle - this time being courted by high-flying politico Bert Skelly, and police Lt. (later Captain) Ed Hall. Bert was a slick career politician who seemed to promise the good life that Carla desired. Ed was a blue-collar, salt-of-the-earth workingman who initially considered Carla to be a stuck-up princess. In time though, Ed proved to be the love of Carla's life, and they married in 1973. By that time, the couple had already begun adoption proceedings on a troubled street youth Joshua West (who took the surname Hall).
By the mid-1970s, "One Life to Live" began straying from the social issues storylines for which it was initially known. The storylines increasingly featured the rich Lord family at the expense of the blue-coller Woleks and Halls. Carla, as well as Ed, Sadie and Josh, were featured less often. Toward the end of the decade, Carla did get the spotlight in one more love triangle: she divorced Ed to marry Dr. Jack Scott, a surgeon who operated on Ed to fix his heart condition. Jack, however, was always planned to be a short term character, and was finally killed off in 1980. The same year Carla left Llanview. She returned in 1983 and, after having attended law school in her absence, Carla became an Assistant District Attorney. In this new position, she later had to prosecute Ed on manslaughter charges for a police drug bust gone wrong. Carla left town again, this time for good, in 1985.
[edit] Groundbreaking issues
Before Carla Gray, there had been no major African-American heroines (or heroes) on any daytime soap opera. Prior to creating One Life to Live, Agnes Nixon had worked as head writer on the NBC soap Another World and already attempted to intregrate African-American characters and actors into that show, with limited success. A CBS soap Love Is a Many Splendored Thing featured an Asian-American as a central leading heroine. However that character be written out after only six months on the air. Carla was the first non-caucasian lead to be featured in a front-burning, sustained storyline.
Nixon has said she was inspired to create the Carla Gray character after seeing singer Eartha Kitt in a television interview. Kitt expressed her own frustration at facing prejudice from both caucasian and black audiences because of her light 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 white). According to actress Ellen Holly's own memoirs ("One Life: An Autobiography of an African American Actress"), Nixon based Carla's mother Sadie off of a maid who worked for Nixon's family when she was growing up (much the same way that Sadie on "Life" initially worked as a maid for the Lord family).
Unfortunately, Holly depicts a backstage story that diverges far from the ideal storyline shown on air. She claims that depite the Carla Gray storyline being a major reason for the series' early success, she faced racist attitudes behind the camera. In her book, Holly is vocal about her frustration at her character being pushed into the background to make way for white characters, and about being summarily dismissed in the mid 1980s by then-producer Paul Rauch, who fired all the African-American actors from the show during his tenure there (including Lillian Hayman, who portrayed Sadie, and was at that point the only actor to appear continuously on the show since its debut).
[edit] References
- ^ a b Schemering, Christopher. The Soap Opera Encyclopedia, September 1985, pg. 158-166, ISBN 0-345-32459-5 (1st edition)
- ^ a b Ellen Holly Biography - FilmReference.com
- Warner, Gary. One Life to Live: Thirty Years of Memories. Hyperion Books (ISBN 0786863676)
- Holly, Ellen. One Life: An Autobiography of an African American Actress. Kodansha America, 1998 (ISBN 1568361971)
