Nell Carter, who became a Broadway star in 1978 with her sassy, Tony Award-winning turn in the Fats Waller musical revue "Ain't Misbehavin,' " then extended her fame during the 1980s playing Nell Harper, the black housekeeper who was a surrogate mom to a white police chief's brood on the NBC sitcom "Gimme a Break," has died. She was 54.
The singer-actress' 13-year-old son, Joshua, found her dead Thursday morning in their home in Beverly Hills, according to Carter's manager, Susan Joseph. The cause of death was uncertain.
Carter spent the last day of her life rehearsing to play Mama in a Long Beach revival of "Raisin," the 1973 musical adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry's 1959 drama "A Raisin in the Sun."
Her character maintains her dignity, resilience and capacity for compassion in the face of hardship and disaster. Carter told a Times reporter who observed rehearsals on Wednesday that she was patterning her performance after the most important and beloved woman in her own life, Edna Lee, the maternal grandmother who raised her.
The actress had to call on reserves of resilience in her own battles with illness, drug addiction and the excess weight she carried on a 4-foot, 11-inch frame. She hoped the role of Mama would return her to Broadway and launch a new career phase as a dramatic leading actress.
Carter grew up in Birmingham, Ala., the fifth of nine children. As a young girl, she began performing in youth singing groups.
But her early years were also filled with trauma: the electrocution of her father, who accidentally stepped on a live power line in a field next to their home when she was a toddler; and her rape at gunpoint when she was 15.
When she was 19, she moved to New York City, singing in coffeehouses. She made her Broadway debut at 22 in "Soon," a flop that also featured then-unknowns Richard Gere and Peter Allen.
Other early credits included small parts in the stage musical "Jesus Christ Superstar" and the film version of "Hair." After training in London as a dramatic actress, Carter was cast in "Ain't Misbehavin,' " which ran on Broadway for nearly four years.
Reviewing the show in 1978, John S. Wilson of the New York Times hailed Carter's "strangely shrill, penetrating voice," saying it "squeezes out startling rhythmic phrases whether she is lounging ... or bumping and belting."
