Olivia Cole

Olivia Carlena Cole (November 26, 1942 – January 19, 2018) was an American actress born in Memphis, Tennessee, to Arvelia Cole (née Cage), a tennis player, instructor, and entrepreneur, and William Calvin Cole, a Grumman employee. Cole is best known for winning the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Drama Series for her portrayal of Matilda, Chicken George's wife, in the 1977 miniseries Roots, a victory that made her the first African American actress to receive that honor.

Cole's formal training spanned several institutions. She graduated from Manhattan's Hunter College High School in 1960 before studying drama at Bard College in New York. She then earned a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, graduating with honors in 1964, and subsequently completed a master's degree in theater arts with a minor in Scandinavian studies at the University of Minnesota in 1967.

Her stage career brought her to Broadway between 1966 and 1974, where her credits included The National Health, The Merchant of Venice, War and Peace, You Can't Take It with You, We, Comrades Three, and The School for Scandal. She made her screen debut on the daytime soap opera Guiding Light in 1969 and went on to appear in more than 30 television programs and films.

Following her Emmy win for Roots, Cole received a second Emmy nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie for her role as Maggie Rogers in the 1979 miniseries Backstairs at the White House. She starred in two CBS sitcoms, Szysznyk from 1977 to 1978 and Report to Murphy in 1982, and appeared in the miniseries North and South, Book I in 1985 and The Women of Brewster Place alongside Oprah Winfrey in 1990. Her television guest appearances included Police Woman, Family, L.A. Law, Christy, and Murder, She Wrote. In 2007, she shared a TV Land Anniversary Award with the cast of Roots.

Cole's film work included Heroes (1977), Coming Home (1978), Some Kind of Hero (1982), Go Tell It on the Mountain (1984), Big Shots (1987), and First Sunday (2008), as well as the television movies Something About Amelia (1984) and The Women of Brewster Place (1989).

In June 1971, Cole married actor Richard Venture; the couple divorced in 1984. She retired from acting in 1995 before later returning to the profession. Cole died on January 19, 2018, at her home in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, following a heart attack, at the age of 75. She was an honorary member of the Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority.