Diahann Carroll is still busy acting on USA's WHITE COLLAR
Diahann Carroll may be turning 75 later this year but she obviously isn’t thinking about retirement anytime soon. Besides a long, often groundbreaking career, the classy Ms. Carroll is still very active whether it’s getting the word out about being a cancer survivor or playing the role of June, a wealthy Rat Pack-connected widow who takes in sexy Matt Bomer’s con man character Neil Caffrey on cable’s latest hit series, White Collar, which airs its first season finale every Tuesday at 10/9c on USA. I was there when Carroll recently talked to journalists about just how good looking Bomer is in real life, her new role on the cable hit and what else she’d like to accomplish in her already wonderful career.
First things first. Is Matt Bomer as drop dead gorgeous as he appears on the show? “If it’s possible, he’s better looking in real life and also very charming,” she shared along with a prediction of where Bomer’s now-hot career is going to go. “I think this is going to catapult him into the kind of stardom that he deserves. He is very hard working and it’s a delight to watch him in front of the camera. I think the character is perfect for him. He is really a bad boy who has good instincts and he looks the part.”
Diahann has nothing but good things to say about Matt Bomer
While Carroll had a recurring character on ABC’s Grey’s Anatomy as the mother of Preston Burke (played by Isaiah Washington, who was let go from the show in 2007 for his infamous anti-gay remarks to co-star T.R. Knight) she hasn’t been a regular on a series since her role as Dominique Deveraux on ABC’s prime time soap Dynasty. How did the role of June come to her? “The creator [Jeff Eastin], actually, is the person who approached [me] about doing this role and he really understood the period of time that was June’s hey-day and I thought, ‘Well, this is going to be really great fun because it goes back to the period of the Rat Pack’ and [June] was, obviously, a part of it to the degree where she was married to one of the musicians.”
Carroll broke new ground by starring in the 60s series, JULIA
One important period in network television occurred with the 1968 premiere of the television series Julia when Carroll broke new ground by being the first African American woman to star in her own series and not portray a domestic worker. While the world of television has made great strides since that time, the Tony and Golden Globe-winning actress still sees room for improvement. “There are so many shows on the air that I’m not really familiar, but I do believe that the stereotypical woman that was dominating television when I started, we’ve done away with that… the integrating is still not on a level that I would like to see it but I do think it’s coming. I do feel that we are trying and that it’s getting better.”
Carroll also said that the integrating of race needs to continue on a broader level. “We have white communities and black communities and white country clubs and black country clubs. It’s very important when we integrate ourselves, and it helps us to have a better understanding of the world, to people all over the world and this is the time in history that we have become very aware of how important that is, so I think it’s just really…we have to know each other and work together and play together in order to write about each other.”
Carroll back in her DYNASTY days
Just as important to Carroll is breast cancer awareness, which is something she definitely does not see as warranting quiet shame but quite the opposite. “Any time I have the opportunity to talk, particularly to women who are going through what I experienced, it’s always a very gratifying exchange for me.” Having let cameras follow her through her own treatment for the disease for a future documentary, Carroll definitely hopes her experience can be of help to others. “I learned something and I hope that I give them something in return, something they can use, something they can move on, and I think that’s one of the best things—one of the perks actually if that can be called a perk—when one knows that they have breast cancer is the exchange, meeting each other, discussing, making new friends, learning new things that they have done that they can pass along to me, and vice verse, and that’s what we will be doing.”
Back to acting, the New York City native was asked what draws her to a particular script or character and she revealed that it’s not always easy to verbalize the feeling. “It’s something that happens intrinsically and also if there’s action that is required of the character and it moves you in a way that is different from anything else that’s on your desk, that’s the piece that you will respond to and wish to have as a part of your life and as a part of your legacy.”
The best advice she could offer in connecting with a role is to go with what your emotions and your own body tell you. “It’s something that’s inexplicable, really, that’s down in your gut and it’s moved by something that makes you feel ‘I’d like to do that, I’d like to be able to say that and make people hear me because I think it’s important,’ even if it’s not—even if it’s a negative, it’d still be important, so I think that’s as much as I can say about it, because it’s something that really is emotional and difficult to verbalize.”
Having been in the entertainment industry for over five decades, Carroll wanted to spread some advice to young actors and actresses trying to break in. “The lesson that I would hope everyone would learn quite early in their career is don’t take it personally. Whatever it is that happens, you’re accepted for a role or rejected for a role of whatever, don’t take it personally. It’s part of the business and the person that is either hiring or firing…that’s their business. That’s what they are there for and it has nothing to do with how you feel about it. It has to do with someone else’s perception of should you, or can you, do this particular part, so just don’t take it personally.”
While it would appear that Carroll has done it all in her career, what does she have left to tackle? “I appreciate that question but I really have not done it all, but…I’ve done theater and television and film and nightclubs, that is true, but I really would love another opportunity to do something as fascinating as Dynasty was on television. I really enjoyed doing that and I’d like to see something like that come about again. Something that is totally absurd and fun.”
She also surmised that perhaps the biggest accomplishment is just living day-to-day. “I’m enjoying it and getting something out of it and putting something into it is a lot to do. I’ve been doing it now for…it will soon be 75 years, in July, and I’m pretty satisfied. I’ve also had four marriages that I went through, which is, also, difficult to do, so I don’t know. I’m feeling satisfied and so everyday—not satisfied to the extent that I’m not making—I’m still making the effort and the effort to do what? Everything.”
White Collar airs every Tuesday at 10/9c on the USA network.
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