Rosalind Cash

Rosalind Cash (December 31, 1938 – October 31, 1995) was an American actress born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, whose career encompassed theater, television, film, and recording. The second of four children born to John O. Cash Sr., a clerk, and Martha Elizabeth Cash, she grew up alongside siblings John Jr., Robert, and Helen. Cash graduated with honors from Atlantic City High School in 1956 and subsequently attended City College of New York.

Her stage career brought her to Broadway between 1963 and 1966, with credits including No Strings and The Wayward Stork. Prior to her Broadway work, she appeared in the 1962 revival of Fiorello. Cash was also an original member of the Negro Ensemble Company, founded in 1968. In 1973, she played Goneril opposite James Earl Jones in the New York Shakespeare Festival's production of King Lear.

On television, Cash appeared on a 1969 episode of the New York-area program Callback, which featured musical director Barry Manilow. The episode, filmed March 31, 1969 at the Village Gate in New York City, aired on CBS on April 19, 1969, and featured Cash performing "God Bless the Child." Her television work extended across numerous series, including The Cosby Show, Good Times, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Kojak, Barney Miller, The Golden Girls, L.A. Law, A Different World, What's Happening!!, Frank's Place, Benson, Roc, Police Woman, Family Ties, Head of the Class, and Barney Miller. She received an Emmy nomination for her work in the Public Broadcasting Service production of Go Tell It on the Mountain. From 1994 until her death, she portrayed Mary Mae Ward on ABC's General Hospital, a performance that earned her a posthumous Emmy nomination in 1996 for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series.

Cash's film work included Omega Man (1971), Klute (1971), The New Centurions (1972) with George C. Scott and Stacy Keach, Uptown Saturday Night (1974) alongside Bill Cosby and Sidney Poitier, Wrong Is Right (1982), and Tales from the Hood (1995), which marked her final film appearance. Beyond her on-screen roles, she provided voices for the 1970 Sesame Street record album The Year of Roosevelt Franklin, Gordon's Friend from Sesame Street, voicing Roosevelt Franklin's mother and his sister, Mary Frances.

Cash never married and had no children. She died of cancer on October 31, 1995, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 56.