Diana Sands

Diana Patricia Sands (August 22, 1934 – September 21, 1973) was an American actress born in the Bronx, New York City, to Rudolph Sands, a Bahamian carpenter, and Shirley (née Thomas), a milliner. One of three children, Sands attended elementary school in Elmsford, New York, before enrolling in 1949 at the Music & Art High School, now known as Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School, where her classmates included Diahann Carroll and Billy Dee Williams. Her first stage role came during her time there, in a school production of George Bernard Shaw's Major Barbara. Following her 1953 graduation, she began her professional career as a dancer, touring with a traveling carnival.

Sands made her Broadway debut in 1959, originating the role of Beneatha Younger in Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, a performance that brought her widespread recognition. Two years later she reprised the role in the film adaptation, co-starring alongside Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, and Ruby Dee. She subsequently became a member of the Actors Studio. In 1964, Sands appeared in the first Broadway production of James Baldwin's Blues for Mister Charlie, with her performance drawing particular notice. That same year she starred opposite Alan Alda in the original Broadway production of The Owl and the Pussycat, earning a Tony Award nomination for Best Actress in a Leading Role. After the production's yearlong run, she spent much of 1966 in the play's London production, this time performing opposite Anton Rodgers.

Her Broadway career spanned 1959 to 1969 and encompassed a range of dramatic works. In addition to A Raisin in the Sun, Blues for Mister Charlie, and The Owl and the Pussycat, her stage credits included the drama Tiger at the Gates, Saint Joan, We Bombed in New Haven, and The Gingham Dog. She received a Theatre World Award in 1963 and earned two Tony Award nominations over the course of her career.

Sands was also active in film and television throughout the 1960s and into the 1970s. Her film credits included the 1963 drama An Affair of the Skin, in which she played the narrator and photographer Janice, and Ensign Pulver in 1964. She co-starred in The Landlord in 1970, followed by Doctors' Wives and Georgia, Georgia. On television, she appeared in the 1964 Outer Limits episode "The Mice" as Dr. Julia Harrison, the series I Spy between 1965 and 1968, a 1967 episode of The Fugitive, and the 1968 series Julia. She received two Emmy Award nominations during her career.

During the fall of 1972, Sands filmed Honeybaby, Honeybaby on location in Beirut, Lebanon, co-starring Calvin Lockhart. According to Lockhart, she sought treatment at a local hospital during production, already aware that she was seriously ill. In early 1973 she appeared in the blaxploitation film Willie Dynamite, co-starring Roscoe Orman. In late August 1973, she began filming Claudine alongside James Earl Jones in Harlem. A week into production she collapsed and was hospitalized, where surgeons discovered a cancerous growth in her abdomen diagnosed as pancreatic cancer. Unable to continue, Sands suggested her longtime friend Diahann Carroll as her replacement, and the film's producers agreed.

In her personal life, Sands was married once, to Swiss artist Lucien Happersberger, from October 1964 until 1966. She had no children. At the time of her death she was engaged to Kurt Baker, an assistant film director. Sands died of leiomyosarcoma on September 21, 1973, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Hospital in New York City, at the age of 39. Her Funeral Mass was held on October 5, 1973, at St. Catherine of Siena Church in Manhattan, and she was buried at Ferncliff Cemetery and Mausoleum in Hartsdale, New York. In 1976, Junior High School 147 in the Bronx was named in her honor.