# Ellen Holly
**Ellen Virginia Holly** (January 16, 1931 – December 6, 2023) was an American actress who was the first African American actress to star on daytime television in a leading role, playing Carla Gray on the ABC soap opera *One Life to Live* from 1968[1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly) • [2](https://www.tvline.com/news/ellen-holly-obituary-one-life-to-live-daytime-tv-first-black-actress-dead-1235096114/). Her casting and emergence as daytime's first lead Black actress came during the racially divisive 1960s[2](https://www.tvline.com/news/ellen-holly-obituary-one-life-to-live-daytime-tv-first-black-actress-dead-1235096114/), and as Carla Gray she played one of the longest-running continuous Black characters in television history[3](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/History/Black-and-White-Afro-Americans-in-TV-Since-1948-MacDonald.pdf).
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Born | January 16, 1931, at International Hospital, Manhattan, to William Garnet Holly and Grayce Arnold Holly; raised in Richmond Hill, Queens[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen) • [5](https://www.ballarddurand.com/obituaries/ellen-holly) |
| Died | December 6, 2023, aged 92, at Calvary Hospital in the Bronx; the Television Academy's database lists December 5[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen) • [5](https://www.ballarddurand.com/obituaries/ellen-holly) • [1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly) |
| Signature role | Carla Benari, later Carla Gray–Hall, on *One Life to Live* (1968 onward), the first Black actress to play a central character on a daytime drama[2](https://www.tvline.com/news/ellen-holly-obituary-one-life-to-live-daytime-tv-first-black-actress-dead-1235096114/) • [6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly) |
| Historic status | First African American actress to star on daytime television in a leading role, and the first with a continuing daily lead role on a soap opera[1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly) • [6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly) |
| Other credits | *Guiding Light* (Judge Collier, 1989–1993), *In the Heat of the Night*, and the films *Take a Giant Step*, *Cops and Robbers*, and *School Days*[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen) • [1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly) |
| Autobiography | *One Life: The Autobiography of an African American Actress* (Kodansha, 1996)[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen) |
| Awards | No Emmy nominations are listed in the Television Academy's database[1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly) |
## Early life and stage career
Holly was born and raised in Richmond Hill, Queens, New York, the daughter of William Garnet Holly and Grayce Arnold Holly[5](https://www.ballarddurand.com/obituaries/ellen-holly). In her autobiography she recorded that she came into the world at 11:30 a.m. on January 16, 1931, at International Hospital in Manhattan, weighing 8 1/4 pounds[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen). Her paternal family tree reached back to the 1700s[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly).
**Theater first.** Holly's breakthrough came on Broadway in *Too Late the Phalarope*, in which she appeared as [Stephanie](https://www.edgepedia.org/stephanie)[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). Before television, she played the lead in eight theatrical productions of Shakespeare and appeared on Broadway alongside actors such as [Jack Lemmon](https://www.edgepedia.org/jack-lemmon), drawing praise from the director [Elia Kazan](https://www.edgepedia.org/elia-kazan) and the acting teacher Lee Strasberg[7](https://www.ahotset.com/television/the-box-looking-back-at-daytimes-first-black-leading-actress-ellen-holly). Strasberg invited her to join the Actors Studio[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly).
Light-skinned, she faced a specific casting problem: as an African American actress who appeared "too light," she found her opportunities boxed in by typecasting. Guest-starring on *Dr. Kildare*, she had to wear makeup to make her skin appear darker[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). She wrote about this experience in a *New York Times* article titled "How Black Do You Have to Be?"[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). That article changed her career: after reading it, the soap creator [Agnes Nixon](https://www.edgepedia.org/agnes-nixon) called her friend Brandon Stoddard, vice president of ABC Daytime[8](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01956051.2020.1833170).
## Carla Gray on One Life to Live
When *One Life to Live* debuted in 1968, Holly became part of the show as Carla Benari, a performer whose background appeared to be Italian and who became romantically involved with Jim Craig, a white physician portrayed first by Robert Milli and later by Nat Polen.[2](https://www.tvline.com/news/ellen-holly-obituary-one-life-to-live-daytime-tv-first-black-actress-dead-1235096114/) The character's name soon became Carla Gray. One of the show's early storylines concerned Carla Gray, a Black woman passing as white who was romantically involved with both a white man and a Black man[9](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Worlds-Without-End-1998.pdf).
Holly was the first Black actress to play a central character on a daytime drama[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly), and as the storyline played out in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, viewers watched the first non-white lead character featured in a front-burning, sustained storyline for several years on a soap opera.
Fan magazines responded enthusiastically. In Holly's words, "It was so exciting to them to have the first Black somebody in daytime. I was the one doing the glamour layouts"[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). Nixon invited her to have input into the character, and Holly was the focus of the show's first year, though she recalled that the producers feared the program becoming a "black show"[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly).
## Departure, return, and firing
Holly's time on *One Life to Live* was marked by repeated conflicts over pay and storylines. She chronicled her struggles with Nixon and various producers to be paid a fair wage and given good storylines, and described difficulties renewing her contract after the first year[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). Difficulties playing opposite the actor who portrayed "Dr. Jack Scott" led to her first exit from the show in 1980[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). She returned in 1983 after a three-year absence, only to be fired by then-producer Paul Rauch at the end of her contract; she and fellow cast member Lillian Hayman were both let go by Rauch[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly). In interviews late in life she described coming to a painful realization that she had been treated shabbily by the network and the show's producers, and what she learned from the experience[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly).
Her run as the character, later billed as Carla Gray–Hall, lasted from 1968 to 1986 overall[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen).
## Later work and writing
After *One Life to Live*, Holly's television credits included *Guiding Light*, where she played Judge Collier from 1989 to 1993, and *In the Heat of the Night*[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen) • [1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly). Her film roles included the features *Take a Giant Step*, *Cops and Robbers*, and *School Days*[1](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly).
In 1996 she published her autobiography, *One Life: The Autobiography of an African American Actress*[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen). In it she also wrote about her romance with [Harry Belafonte](https://www.edgepedia.org/harry-belafonte)[4](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen). Civil rights ran through her life off screen: she attended Martin Luther King's March on Washington in 1963 with her aunt, Anna Arnold Hedgeman[6](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly).
## Significance
Holly's Carla Gray marked a major moment in entertainment history as the first Black leading actress of daytime television[7](https://www.ahotset.com/television/the-box-looking-back-at-daytimes-first-black-leading-actress-ellen-holly), and the role established the first non-white lead character in a sustained, front-burning soap-opera storyline. One commentator has observed that discussion of Holly is often limited to the fact of being first, at the expense of her actual work on screen[7](https://www.ahotset.com/television/the-box-looking-back-at-daytimes-first-black-leading-actress-ellen-holly). Decades later, when CBS premiered *Beyond the Gates* in 2025 as the first Black-led daytime soap opera and the first new network soap since *Passions* in 1999, it arrived on the ground Holly had opened in 1968[10](https://apnews.com/article/5b38d5f11c787e7bdd3dfaf382c06e69).
## References
1. [Ellen Holly | Emmy Awards and Nominations, Television Academy](https://www.televisionacademy.com/bios/ellen-holly)
2. [OLTL's Ellen Holly, First Black Actress To Lead Daytime Soap, Dead At 92, TVLine](https://www.tvline.com/news/ellen-holly-obituary-one-life-to-live-daytime-tv-first-black-actress-dead-1235096114/)
3. [Black and White: Afro-Americans in Television Since 1948 (J. Fred MacDonald), WorldRadioHistory](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/History/Black-and-White-Afro-Americans-in-TV-Since-1948-MacDonald.pdf)
4. [Holly, Ellen, Astro-Databank](https://www.astro.com/astro-databank/Holly%2C_Ellen)
5. [Ellen Holly Obituary Dec 6, 2023, Ballard-Durand Funeral & Cremation Services](https://www.ballarddurand.com/obituaries/ellen-holly)
6. [Ellen Holly | Television Academy Interviews](https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/ellen-holly)
7. [The Box: Looking Back At Daytime's First Black Leading Actress Ellen Holly, A Hot Set](https://www.ahotset.com/television/the-box-looking-back-at-daytimes-first-black-leading-actress-ellen-holly)
8. [Ellen Holly (Performer), Journal of Popular Film and Television 48(4), 2020](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01956051.2020.1833170)
9. [Worlds Without End (Museum of Radio & TV history), WorldRadioHistory](https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Radio-Programming/Worlds-Without-End-1998.pdf)
10. [Come 'Beyond the Gates' for the first Black-led soap opera, Associated Press](https://apnews.com/article/5b38d5f11c787e7bdd3dfaf382c06e69)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Screen people and creators › Screen actors of the Anglosphere and Europe › American actors: 1940s to 1960s › Surnames H*
*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license