Diahann Carroll was an American actress, singer, model, and activist. She rose to prominence in some of the earliest major studio films to feature Black casts, including Carmen Jones and Porgy and Bess. In 1962, Carroll won a Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical, a first for an African American woman, for her role in the Broadway musical No Strings. In 1974 she starred in Claudine alongside James Earl Jones for which she received an Academy Award for Best Actress nomination.
