She was a huge trailblazer -- her dramedy Julia was the first network show starring an African-American woman that wasn't demeaning or premised on stereotypes.
Later, she'd play a memorable diva on Dynasty, singlehandedly diversifying one of the more aggressively white television shows in American history.
But for me, her greatest work may be the 1974 comedy-drama Claudine, in which she played the title role and for which she earned a Best Actress Oscar nomination. Nominations for black actors were extremely rare in the 1970s, and they unforgivably took no Oscars home for acting over the course of the entire decade.
Things were so dire that a secret Black Oscars were held among African-American performers to acknowledge each other because the industry stubbornly refused to.
Somehow though in 1974, Carroll broke through. On paper, it was not typical Oscar fare. It's a loud, abrasive romantic comedy drama about a single mother struggling on welfare and her burgeoning relationship with an affectionate garbage man (played with great charm by a young James Earl
Jones).
Carroll, whose image had always been high brow, is surprisingly believable as a blue collar New York mom, and her harried, humane performance keeps the film afloat. It is one of the rare earthbound black films of the blaxploitation era and its a real showcase for her and Jones to show off their range as the episodic film keeps throwing road blocks in front of them.
Some of the film is hopelessly dated and, of course, its plot elements involving unwed mothers, wannabe political revolutionaries and suppression from the state could be construed as 'black people problems' -- certainly in many homes they were.
But there are nice little moments that make this movie special. I love the way Carroll plays a scene where she watches Jones run verbal circles around the white man she works for. Her early resistance to Jones fades at the sight of his strength of character and she runs after his garbage truck to give him her number.
Later, Jones is confronted in a bar by one of her sons when he appears to have abandoned Claudine. They get in scuffle, and it ends with Jones holding the boy close, their grappling becomes an earnest hug.
Meanwhile, a killer Gladys Knight and the Pips soundtrack supplies a different kind of soul throughout.
Much of the movie is chaotic -- the central dilemma is a catch-22 where Claudine will have to give up the social aid she desperately needs to have a relationship with Jones' character, but will lose him if she chooses to stay on welfare. The film never fully resolves its conflicts -- and ends on an oddly surreal note -- but Carroll's poise and power stick with you, which is perhaps why the Oscars couldn't ignore her.
It was a strong slate that year -- Gena Rowlands, Faye Dunaway and Ellen Burstyn giving some of the best performances of their careers (Burstyn prevailed) -- but Carroll was definitely their equal in this small little movie that time has largely forgotten.
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