The following excerpted article appeared in the August 10,
1969 issue of
the New York Times. Accompanying the article are pictures of Ellen Holly
(ex-Carla) and
Peter DeAnda (ex-Price)
by Ellen Holly
In September of last year I was approached to try out for a part on a
brand new ABC soap
opera called "One Life To Live"; the part was a black girl who passes for
white. I didn't
give it much thought. If you're black you don't get white parts, and if
you're a "black who
looks white" you don't get black parts either. But what most people
don't realize is that
even when there's a part for a "black who looks like white," it never
goes to a black person
but to a white one. Follow? I know ... I know ... it's hard for me,
too.
Some years ago I was interviewed for the film "I Passed For White" and
the part went to
the white Sandra Wilde. Some years later, I was seen about the remake of
"Imitation of
Life." Ross Hunter cooed over me, told me I looked like Loretta Young,
and gave the part
to the white Susan Kohner. I had dim memories of Jeanne Crain in
"Pinky," Ben Aliza in
"The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window," Mell Ferrer & Co. as the family
in "Lost
Boundaries" and numerous other whites masquerading as blacks masquerading
as whites
which, as far as I am concerned, cancels out the whole point much in the
manner of a
double negativity. So I thought I knew pretty much what to expect from
"One Life To
Live."
At the interview with the producer, Doris Quinlan, I smiled and did my
best to look
amiable, talented and 20 (which was what the part called for and which I
hadn't seen for a
goodly while), but in the back of my head I was already bracing for the
inevitable
turndown. She smiled a lovely smile back and said that they were being
polite about things
and looking at all the white girls the agents were sending them but that
she didn't really see
the slightest point to the whole thing if the girl wasn't the genuine
article. It sounded
revolutionary enough to report her to the H.U.A.C. They tested me. A
couple of days
later I had the part. I couldn't believe it.
Then I began to worry. I have such a personal distaste for blacks who
pass for white that I
wondered how the story line was going to be handled. If an actor's at
all squeamish or
apprehensive about the part he's playing, a soap poses a rather special
problem for him. In
a play or film you know the whole story before you contract to do it, but
in a soap the story
is open-ended. New writing is a constant and you don't know from one
moment to the
next what words are going to be put into your mouth. If you're dealing
with dense writers,
you can end up playing a ventriloquist's dummy Uncle Tom or quitting the
job to avoid
it.
On the other hand, in terms of the particular story line, I found the
idea fascinating. I felt
that the unique format of a soap would enable people to examine their
prejudices in a way
no other format possibly could. In a play or a film the audience would
relate to the
character as white only briefly and then discover she was black perhaps
an hour later, but
the soap audience would relate to her as white for months ...
months in which she
would become part of their daily lives ... for some, virtually a member
of their family. The
emotional investment they made in her as a human being would be
infinitely greater, and
when the switch came, their involvement would be real rather than
superficial. A lot of
whites who think they aren't prejudiced - are. It seemed like a
marvelous opportunity to
help them confront their own prejudices. When the switch came, those who
would
radically alter their response to the character would surely demonstrate
to themselves that
they don't dislike black people because they are dirty or lazy or stupid,
but just because
they are black - i.e., they would have a chance to isolate not only the
existence of their own
prejudice but, also, its lack of a logical base.
My character, Carla Benari, was introduced last October. For four months
thereafter I was
presented as a white girl, a struggling actress engaged to a white doctor
but gravitating -
against her will - toward a gorgeous black one. Ironically, for the
first time in my life, I had
to "cool" being black lest I tip the plot. I had to forgo an appearance
on another ABC
show called "Like It Is" that deals with the black scene, and patiently
wait for an issue of
Look in which I appeared properly labeled as a black actress to disappear
from the stands.
Even though the situation was temporary, I found it much more destructive
to my psyche
than I had dreamed ...
A month went by, and we got to an important turn in the plot. I kissed
Peter De Anda,
who plays the gorgeous black doctor, and confessed my love for him.
Immediately, the
switchboard was flooded with calls from irate white men defending my
supposedly
Caucasian virtue (later, after the switch, I'm sure they felt like a
bunch of idiots) and the
show was dropped like a hot potato by a station in Texas. Most producers
would have
blanched and dropped the story line; Doris Quinlan had been prepared to
lose more. The
reaction from white women was different. They wrote in (people who are
angry seem to
call at once to relieve their feeling; people who are pleased seem to
write at their leisure)
and said, "Well, it's about time."
... Finally, we got to the switch. In an ingenious script whose parallel
cutting was almost as
well done as Hitchcock's tennis game sequence in "Strangers on a Train,"
I met up with the
black mother I had abandoned nine years before (a major character, who
had already been
well established in the story line long before I was, and played by
Lillian Hayman of
"Hallelujah, Baby" fame). People were genuinely surprised. Most found
it absorbing.
Others were fascinated by the way all the pieces fit. There were, of
course, the inevitable
ones who found it hard to accept ...
It is now several months since the switch. Presumably, people would have
made emotional
adjustments they felt necessary and settled down. Still, there are those
who call the show
from time to time to check to make certain that a black actress rather
than a white one is
playing the part. Whether it's a black person checking to make sure that
a soul sister wasn't
done out of a job, or a white person checking to make sure a white
actress isn't playing
opposite a black actor, is never clear. What is clear is that
it's going to be a great
day when America ceases to be obsessed with color...
I love my job. Jack Wood and Don Wallace direct the show with a special
care of things.
The actors are some of the best around. The writer, Agnes Nixon, is more
sensitive to the
vibrations of the black community than any white I've ever met and I
think three or four of
the episodes have been more relevant to life and real concerns than any I
ever dealt with
during a decade in the theater. The tedious but necessary aspects of
soap opera are
definitely present - exposition to help newcomers catch up on plot lines,
dull stretches,
repetition. But within the framework of the genre surprisingly much has
gotten said -
among other things, that blacks pass for white not because they value
whiteness per se, but
rather because they value the special rights and privileges that unfairly
accrue to whiteness
... New as it is, "One Life To Live" has one of the highest ratings of
any soap on the air.
Not only because of this story line, but because of several things
equally well done,
including the major one about some swanky goings on on the Philadelphia Main
Line.
I love the job, but I have one major regret ... I look forward to the day
when America
believes that the relevant thing about me is not that I am black but that
I am Ellen.
