CRAPAPEDIA part II. Does history matter? Not to CRAPAPEDIA. That's the only way to explain this in the entry on actress, singer, entertainer Teresa Graves (LAUGH-IN, GET CHRISTIE LOVE, etc.):
Graves was the second African-American woman to star in her own hour–long television series and the first for a drama television series.[1][2]
[. . .]
Graves pivotal role in the 1974 ABC crime drama television movie and later series Get Christie Love! featured Charles Cioffi and Jack Kelly as
Lieutenants Reardon and Ryan, respectively, Love's supervisors. At the
time of the series creation, Graves' was noted as the second
African-American woman to star in her own hour–long television series,
after Diahann Carroll in Julia which aired six years prior. An article in the November 1974 issue of Jet magazine
described Graves as "television's most delightful detective, the
epitome of a tough lady cop with more feminine features than Venus".[6] In 1983, Graves retired from show business to devote her time to her faith.
See the problem?
JULIA
wasn't an hour long program. It was a half-hour sitcom starring
Diahann Carroll. So Teresa couldn't be the second African-American
woman to star in her own hour-long TV series if we're counting JULIA as
the first.
Cicely Tyson was
part of an ensemble cast of 1963's EAST SIDE WEST SIDE (fourth of the
five billed actors). It was an hour long drama headed by George C.
Scott. She was not the star -- it was an ensemble (she played Scott's
secretary) so we wouldn't consider her the star anymore than we'd
consider Karen Valentine the star of ROOM 222. If you are going to
consider her the star and not part of an ensemble, then Teresa wouldn't
be the second woman. It would be Nichelle Nichols for STAR TREK. But
unless someone can think of an actress who starred in an hour long drama
-- carried the show -- before Teresa Graves, Teresa holds the record.
