Ethel Ayler

Ethel Ayler (May 1, 1930 – November 18, 2018) was an American character actress born in Whistler, Alabama, whose career on stage, television, and film extended across more than five decades. She graduated from Fisk University before embarking on a professional acting career that would take her from off-Broadway stages to recurring television roles and acclaimed film work.

Ayler entered the professional theater world in 1957 with an off-Broadway appearance in Simply Heavenly, a musical written by Langston Hughes. That same year she made her Broadway debut in Jamaica, a multiple Tony Award-nominated musical in which she served as understudy to Lena Horne. Her early stage work also included Jean Genet's The Blacks: A Clown Show, an off-Broadway production that ran for 1,408 performances and earned three Obie Awards, among them Best New Play. The cast of that production included James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, and Louis Gossett Jr., all three of whom would go on to receive Academy Award nominations.

Throughout her career, Ayler maintained a close association with the Negro Ensemble Company, appearing in several of its productions including The First Breeze of Summer, Eden, and Nevis Mountain Dew. Her Broadway credits across her four decades on the Great White Way included The Cool World, Jamaica, Kwamina, The First Breeze of Summer, and The Little Foxes, the last of which was a Tony-nominated production and marked her final Broadway appearance in 1997.

On television, Ayler was widely recognized for her recurring role as Carrie Hanks, the mother of Clair Huxtable, on The Cosby Show. Her film work included To Sleep with Anger in 1990 and Eve's Bayou in 1997. Her performance in To Sleep with Anger earned her a nomination for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Female. Ayler died on November 18, 2018, in Loma Linda, California, at the age of 88.