Diahann Carroll (Kay/Glusman/DeLeon/Damone)

In the 90s, she was the insufferable Whitley Gilbert's equally-insufferable mother on A Different World!
In the 80s, she was elegant Dominique Deveraux, who went toe-to-toe catfighting with Alexis (Joan Collins) and Krystle (Linda Evans) on the legendary prime-time soaps Dynasty and The Colbys!
In the 70s, she appeared as a sultry hologram on the nigh-legendary Star Wars Holiday Special!
And, in the 60s, while she was the second Black woman to star in a tv series titled after her character, she was the FIRST to play a non-servant as Julia Baker, RN in Julia! (The first series, Beulah, was about a maid.)
A classically-trained singer, Diahann has over a dozen albums to her credit, and won a Tony for her performance on Broadway in No Strings!
She's a breast cancer activist / survivor, and even invited a camera crew into her treatment room for a national broadcast special to draw public attention to the disease.
Definitely one of the classiest women ever to grace the Fantastic Femmes section of our blog, Diahann's just written an autobiography entitled The Legs Are The Last To Go, but in her case, they ain't gone yet! In fact, she's still going strong at 74, having just done a tv pilot called White Collar!

Trivia: She attended NYC's Music and Art High School with fellow Star Wars actor Billy Dee Williams (Lando Calrissian).
While they have performed together on other projects, they didn't work together on Star Wars. (She did the Holiday Special, he did The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi!)

Genre credits include...
Disney's the Legend of Tarzan (Queen La)
ABC WeekEnd Special "Jirimpimbira: an African Folk Tale" (Narrator)
Touched by an Angel "The Driver"
Perry Mason: the Case of the Lethal Lifestyle (Lydia Bishop)
From the Dead of Night (Maggie)
Burke's Law [1994] "Who Killed the Beauty Queen?"
Murder in Black & White (Margo Stover)
Star Wars Holiday Special (Mermeia the Hologram)
Death Scream (Betty May)
Naked City "A Horse has a Big Head"
Peter Gunn "Sing a Song of Murder"

Check out...
Diahann's Official WebSite

Queen La of Opar has also been played by...
Lilian Worth in Adventures of Tarzan (1921)
Mademoiselle Kithnou in Tarzan the Tiger (1929)