The Legs Are The Last To Go by Diahann Carroll
By Dera Williams • Nov 23rd, 2008 • Category: Book Review •
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In her memoir, The Legs Are The Last To Go: Aging, Acting, Marrying & Other Things I Learned The Hard Way, Diahann Carroll stresses this is not a biography (she has already written that in 1982), but rather a discourse on life lived on one’s own terms. Carroll, star of stage, television, and the silver screen, waxes philosophically on love, motherhood, racism and show business with a confidence that she has been accustomed to her entire life. Raised by working class parents from South Carolina, who through the proverbial pulling up of their bootstraps, ascended into the black middle-class in New York in the 1940s and 50s.
While Carroll was not born with a silver spoon in her mouth, she exhibited a great talent in the arts with her singing and musical training. Plucked out of her performing arts high school into modeling, and eventually acting and singing, she crossed barriers and bucked traditions. For instance, she played the lead in “The Owl and the Pussy Cat” on Broadway, a role written for a white woman. Additionally, she was the first African American woman to have a television series, “Julia”, in the 1960s.
While she was very successful in her professional life, Carroll struggled with her personal life, counting four failed marriages, numerous affairs, and her ever-conflicting role as mother to daughter, Suzanne. Carroll regrets the missed opportunities with her daughter because she was so busy building a career. When they did have time together appearances were always important, and being dressed to a “T” in public took precedence over being mommy. It was always about Diahann and what she wanted.
And what Carroll wanted was Sidney Poitier, THE Sidney Poitier, the academy award actor, who as a senior citizen still makes women swoon. Despite his being married, Carroll was willing to give up her marriage to her daughter’s father, Monte Kay, only to be rejected by Poitier. A marriage to singer Vic Damone and a long-time affair with TV personality, David Frost, floundered, both relationships wracked by insecurities and bad judgment.
It appears that Carroll simply made poor choices, continually, over and over, when it came to men. It is only in her “golden” years, now that she is in her 70s, that she has found satisfaction in being alone. A brush with breast cancer and being a grandmother has sobered and mellowed her into a peace she has long sought. After all, when everything on you starts to sag, the legs are the last to go and Carroll is still standing tall in her high heels.
Dera R. Williams
APOOO BookClub
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Dera Williams is a writer and lives, works and plays in the Oakland/Bay Area where she works in curriculum at a local community college. She has contributed to several anthologies and journals including Life Spices from Seasoned Sistahs and Honoring Our Black Fathers and has written academic profiles for Greenwood press reference books. She is a reviewer/editor for APOOO Exchange Team and Affaire de Coeur magazine and active in literary events. Her book club affiliations include Marcus Book Club, East Bay Page Turners Book Club and Women of Words Book Club. Her other interests include genealogy, Black history and culture and travel.
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Now this is a book I think I would read. After having watched her over the years I think she is someone who I would love to meet and have lunch with. She looks fabulous at 70 !
I am interested in this book. I know over the years she has seen alot and is one that we can learn from. I feel that way about cisley tyson as well.
LaShonda and Linda,
I think you both will like the book. She has some fascinating stories being in show business.
Dera´s last blog post..My name is Dera and I am a bookaholic
I can’t believe I’m This Old but I remember being glued to the television whenever Julia was on. Way Back Then, Diahann Carroll epitomized Class for me. I’ve been a big fan ever since;
can’t wait to read her book.
BC, I remember being a child and watching Julia…every Monday or Friday night.
I greatly enjoyed this book and from the reading of the first page could not put it down until I finished it. It is written with strong literary skill and it is very informative about the life of performing and the continual ongoing preparation required. It is also very instructive, without intending to be, for future singers and actors in preparing for winning an audition. Ms. Carroll has revealed her life more honestly than I have ever read in other persons biographies and even though I am just a regular working class woman I found many analogous experiences with her family life and experiences with men and racism that were instructive by showing me that even with her great beauty and celebrity she too experienced these travails and in many instances more than myself; it helped me to understand better and aided in a psychological help to my own painful reminders. She is a very strong woman. How she wisely dealt with death in her family also is a help to me due to my own recent mourning. I LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this book. Thank you Ms. Carroll so much.
I remember her from Dynasty….