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Ellen Holly
Ellen Holly (born January 16, 1931) is an African – American actress.
She began her career on stage, but began making films and appearing on TV. She appeared on In the Heat of the Night (TV series) and Naked City, but is best remembered by long-time soap fans as actress-turned-Judge Clara "Carla" Hall on the ABC soap opera One Life to Live, a role she played from 1968 to 1980, and again from 1983 to 1985.
She came to the attention of Agnes Nixon, the creator of One Life to Live, after writing a letter to the editor of the New York Times about what it was like to be a light-skinned Negro. Miss Nixon created the role of Carla and offered Miss Holly a role on her new show.
When she began on One Life to Live in October 1968, it was not revealed to the audience that she was an African-American. Her character, a touring actress, had an Italian surname. Later, a Caucasian physician, Dr. James Craig (then played by Robert Milli) became engaged to marry her. But she was falling for an African-American doctor (played by playwright Peter DeAnda) on the show. When the two kissed on screen, it was reported that the switchboards at ABC were busy by fans who thought that the show had shown an African-American and Caucasian kissing.
Carla, her One Life to Live character, later married an African-American police officer, Ed Hall (played mostly by Al Freeman, Jr.) and adopted a son, the streetwise Joshua West, who was first played by a young Laurence Fishburne. She and Ed later divorced after Carla fell in love with a physician, Dr. Jack Scott (Arthur Burghardt).
After the death of Dr. Scott and her first exit from One Life to Live in the early '80s, Ellen Holly was invited back to the program several years later, and the character of Carla returned to Llanview as a lawyer. She became involved romantically with football star Alec Lowndes, played by Roger Hill, better known as "Cyrus" from the cult film The Warriors, while Carla's former husband Ed Hall dallied with publicist Courtney Wright, played by a young Phylicia Rashad. Offscreen, Holly also pursued a relationship with Roger Hill. As for Carla, she and Ed eventually reunited, only for Carla to move away to take a judgeship in Arizona when Holly was fired from the show by new executive producer Paul Rauch. All remaining traces of Ellen Holly's onscreen family, including Al Freeman, Jr., were dismissed not long after, though Freeman made a brief guest appearance in 2000 as Ed Hall to support the shortlived character of Ed and Carla's grandson, Jared Hall, played by Herve Clermont.
After her dismissal from One Life to Live in 1985, Miss Holly played the recurring role of a judge on the CBS soap opera Guiding Light. She also made a return to the small screen in 2002, when she appeared as "Selena Frey" in the made-for-cable film 10,000 Black Men Named George alongside Andre Braugher and Mario Van Peebles.
An accomplished writer as well as actress, she wrote many of the storyline for Carla on One Life to Live. She was one of the few African-American writers in the soap opera genre. She later wrote a book, One Life: The Autobiography of an African American actress.
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