Alaina Reed

Alaina Reed Hall, born Bernice Ruth Reed on November 10, 1946, in Springfield, Ohio, was an American actress and singer whose career spanned stage, television, and film. She died on December 17, 2009, at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, of breast cancer, at the age of 63.

Reed's early training took place at Kent State University in the mid-1960s, where she participated in numerous productions at the school's E. Turner Stump Theater. Her stage work there included The Streets of New York, It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's Superman!, and The Tragedy of Tragedies — The Life and Death of Tom Thumb The Great. During her time in Kent, she sang with an all-girl group called Tiny and the Dunnaways. In the fall of 1966, she joined a group called The Velours alongside Glenn Lucas, Bob Boettcher, Bruce Rusin, and Marty Kralik, performing five nights a week at the Kove in Kent, Ohio from February 1967 through December 1968.

Her professional career began in Philadelphia and off-Broadway productions before she transitioned to Broadway, where she performed from 1969 to 1979. Her Broadway credits include Hair, Chicago, and Eubie!. She was also among the original cast members of the 1974 off-Broadway production of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band on the Road, and she appeared in the 1977 Broadway revival of Hair, having previously performed in the Chicago production in 1970.

In 1976, Reed was cast as Olivia Robinson on the PBS children's television series Sesame Street, playing Gordon's younger sister, a photographer by profession. She held the role until 1988, and in 1985 reprised the character in the theatrical film Follow That Bird. That same year she joined the cast of the NBC sitcom 227, in which she played Rose Lee Holloway, for a time dividing her schedule between New York, where Sesame Street was taped, and Los Angeles, where 227 was produced. The series ran until 1990.

Following the end of 227, Reed appeared in guest roles on television programs including Herman's Head and Blossom, provided voice work for the animated series Where on Earth Is Carmen Sandiego?, and held recurring roles on Ally McBeal, Any Day Now, and ER. In 1995 she co-starred on the short-lived WB sitcom Cleghorne!, and in 1996 she appeared in the television film The Cherokee Kid. Her feature film work included Death Becomes Her (1992), Cruel Intentions (1999), and the 2007 independent film I'm Through with White Girls (The Inevitable Undoing of Jay Brooks).

Reed was married three times and had two children from her first marriage to Richard Cook, which ended in divorce. In December 1988 she married actor Kevin Peter Hall, whom she had met when he appeared as a guest performer on 227. Kevin Peter Hall died in April 1991 from complications from pneumonia, having contracted HIV through a contaminated blood transfusion received during surgery following a car accident. In 2008, Reed married Tamim Amini, and they remained married until her death. Following her death, her ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean.