Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Diahann Carroll Dresses Up DYNASTY (1984)



Today's vintage "Dynasty" article comes from 1984 when Diahann Carroll (49 at the time) joined the "riches-and-bitches soap" and People Magazine called her "the only black actress with a continuing role on a prime-time serial."

Carroll said many times (in interviews and documentaries) that she was fascinated by nighttime soaps (which were all the rage at the time), but she could also see a clear void - she wanted to become (as she herself put it) "Dynasty's" first "black bitch."

Carroll first appeared in the final two episodes of season 4 (aired on May 2 and 9, 1984) and it seems the network had already ordered 29 episodes for the following season by that time as the article mentions Carroll was under a lucrative contract for 17 of them.

The article also debunks the rumor that was floated at the time - that Dominique Deveraux was the major domo's daughter Kirby's long lost mother. Kathleen Beller, who played Kirby, was actually on her way out of the series.

Dominique, of course, did not reveal her identity in season 4 - we learned who she claimed to be in the concluding moments of the 4th episode of season 5 (which premiered October 24, 1984), so the writers had a couple more months to decide who Dominique Deveraux was going to be.


  

4 comments:

  1. Actually, Dominique's secret was revealed on season 4's finale when she said "Won't it just knock their socks off when they find out I'm a Carrington?" That sentence wasn't written on the script in order to keep it secret. The next year, it's the whole cliffhanger that wasn't on the script of the season's finale (the script finished with the priest blessing Amanda and Michael).

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  2. Cette photo est absolument magnifique...!

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  3. Yes, of course. But that was still very vague. I obviously had in mind her more specific revelation about being Blake's half-sister. Now, THAT was juicy. The cliffhanger revelation didn't really come as a major shock (despite being omitted from the script) since we could have easily suspected she would somehow be connected to the family.

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  4. It was much more vague in french. She said: "Ils vont être très étonnés quand ils sauront qu'ils vont devoir compter avec une nouvelle Carrington" (They're going to be amazed when they know they've got to cope with A new carrington" Which could mean anything since she didn't point out she was talking about herself. Sometimes french translation was nonsense... But french voices were not so bad, especially for Dex.

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