Esther Rolle
Birthday: Born in 1920-11-08 in Pompano Beach, Florida USA
Deathday: 1998-11-17
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Esther Elizabeth Rolle (November 8, 1920 – November 17, 1998) was a Bahamian American actress. Rolle is best known for her role as Florida Evans, on the CBS television sitcom Maude, for two seasons (1972–1974), and its spin-off series Good Times, for five seasons (1974–77, 1978–79), for which Rolle was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1976. Rolle is best known for her television role as Florida Evans, the character she played on two 1970s sitcoms. The character was introduced as Maude Findlay's housekeeper on Maude, and was spun off in the show's second season into Good Times, a show about Florida's family. Rolle was nominated in 1975 for the Best Actress in a Musical/Comedy Golden Globe Award for her role in Good Times. Rolle was 19 years older than the actor (John Amos) who played her husband James Evans. The James Evans character was only added after Esther Rolle fought hard for a father figure and husband to be added to the show. Rolle had fought for the father character on the show, more relevant themes and scripts and was unhappy when the success of Jimmie Walker's character, J.J. Evans, took the show in a frivolous direction. John Amos agreed with Rolle about Walker's character and was fired from the show after the third season ended. Later on, in a stand-off with Good Times producer Norman Lear, Rolle also quit when her contract ended. Although the show continued without her for the fifth season, she returned for the show's final season. In 1979 she won an Emmy for her role in Summer of My German Soldier, a made-for-television movie. Among her guest star roles was one on The Incredible Hulk in an episode entitled "Behind the Wheel" where she played a taxicab business owner. In the 1990s, Rolle was a surprise guest on RuPaul's VH-1 talk show. Her Maude co-star Bea Arthur was the guest, and Rolle was brought out to surprise Arthur. The two had not seen each other in years, Arthur said, and embraced warmly. Rolle also appeared in a series of psychic hotline TV commercials in the 1990s. "Tell them Esther sent you," was her trademark line.
TV Credits
Murder, She Wrote
Character: Margaret
An unassuming mystery writer turned sleuth uses her professional insight to help solve real-life homicide cases....
Good Times
Character: Florida Evans
Good Times is an American sitcom that originally aired from February 8, 1974, until August 1, 1979, on the CBS television network. It was created by Eric Monte and Mike Evans, and developed by Norman Lear, the series' primary executive producer. Good Times is a spin-off of Maude, which is itself a spin-off of All in the Family along with The Jeffersons. The series is set in Chicago. The first two seasons were taped at CBS Television City in Hollywood. In the fall of 1975, the show moved to Metr...
The Incredible Hulk
Character:
During an experiment gone bad, radiation turns a scientist into a raging green behemoth whenever he becomes agitated. Unable to control his transformations, David Banner searches for a cure as he crosses the country, fugitive-style, with a dogged tabloid reporter on his trail....
Touched by an Angel
Character: Mary Harding
Monica, an angel, is tasked with bringing guidance and messages from God to various people who are at a crossroads in their lives....
Maude
Character: Florida Evans
Well-educated and upper middle class, Maude Findlay is the archetypal feminist of her generation. She lives in suburban Tuckahoe, New York, with her fourth husband, Walter, their divorced daughter, Carol, and grandson Phillip....
Flamingo Road
Character:
Flamingo Road is an American prime time soap opera that aired on NBC. It was first seen as a TV movie on May 12, 1980, and as a series on January 6, 1981, after a rebroadcast of the pilot on December 30, 1980. The show is based on the 1949 movie starring Joan Crawford, which is, in turn, based on the novel by Robert Wilder. Flamingo Road was created to compete against CBS's Dallas and Knots Landing, nighttime dramas that were inspired by the daily afternoon soap operas that had been a staple of ...
Donny & Marie
Character: Self
Donny & Marie is an American variety show which aired on ABC from January 1976 to January 1979. The show stars brother and sister pop duo Donny Osmond and Marie Osmond. Donny had first become popular singing in a music group with his brothers, The Osmonds, and Marie was one of the youngest singers to reach #1 on the Billboard Country Music charts. The siblings were offered a weekly show by ABC-TV President Fred Silverman after he saw the duo co-host a week on The Mike Douglas Show which followe...
Hallmark Hall of Fame
Character:
Hallmark Hall of Fame is an anthology program on American television, sponsored by Hallmark Cards, a Kansas City based greeting card company. The longest-running primetime series in the history of television, it has a historically long run, beginning during 1951 and continuing into 2013. From 1954 onward, all of its productions have been shown in color, although color television video productions were extremely rare in 1954. Many television movies have been shown on the program since its debut, ...
Scarlett
Character:
Scarlett O’Hara’s flight from the scrutiny of Atlanta society takes her on a journey to Savannah and Charleston, to England, and to Ireland, where she discovers her family's roots....
Promised Land
Character: Mary Harding
Promised Land is an American drama series which aired on CBS from 1996 to 1999. It is a spin-off from another series, Touched by an Angel....
Finder of Lost Loves
Character: Nellie
The Finder of Lost Loves TV show was a 60 minute drama series on ABC about a private investigator who specialized in finding lost loves from the past for his heartbroken clients....
The New Odd Couple
Character: Ms. Gibbs
The New Odd Couple is an American sitcom that aired on ABC from 1982–1983, and was an updated version of the 1970s television series The Odd Couple. The New Odd Couple was the second attempt to remake a series of one of Neil Simon's plays with a primarily African-American cast. The first was Barefoot in the Park....
Movie Credits
Driving Miss Daisy
Character: Idella
The story of an old Jewish widow named Daisy Werthan and her relationship with her black chauffeur, Hoke. From an initial mere work relationship grew in 25 years a strong friendship between the two very different characters, in a time when those types of relationships were shunned....
How to Make an American Quilt
Character: Aunt Pauline
Soon-to-be-wed graduate student Finn Dodd develops cold feet when she suspects her fiancé is cheating on her. In order to clear her head, Finn visits her grandmother, Hy, and great aunt, Glady Joe Cleary, in Grasse, Calif. There, Finn learns that Hy and Glady Joe are members of a group of passionate quilters, and over the course of her visit she is regaled with tales of love and life by women who have collected rich experiences and much wisdom....
Cleopatra Jones
Character: Mrs. Johnson
After federal agent Cleopatra Jones orders the burning of a Turkish poppy field, the notorious drug lord Mommy vows to destroy her....
Cape Fear
Character: Woman Watching Cady Get Out from Under the Car (uncredited)
Sam Bowden is a small-town corporate attorney. Max Cady is a tattooed, cigar-smoking, Bible-quoting, psychotic rapist. What do they have in common? 14 years ago, Sam was a public defender assigned to Max Cady's rape trial, and he made a serious error: he hid a document from his illiterate client that could have gotten him acquitted. Now, the cagey Cady has been released, and he intends to teach Sam Bowden and his family a thing or two about loss....
Who Says I Can't Ride a Rainbow!
Character: Maid
Barney owns the last working farm in Manhattan. For various reasons, city officials have decided to close it down. A special event is planned to raise awareness and money to keep it running....
House of Cards
Character: Adelle
When Ruth Matthews's husband is killed in a fall at an archaeological dig, her daughter Sally handles her father's death in a very odd manner. As Sally's condition worsens, Ruth takes her to see Jake, an expert in childhood autism. Jake attempts to bring Sally out of her mental disarray through traditional therapy methods, but Ruth takes a different route. She risks her own sanity by attempting to enter her daughter's mind and make sense of the seemingly bizarre things that Sally does, including...
Nothing But a Man
Character: Church Woman
A proud black man and his school-teacher wife face discriminatory challenges in 1960s America....
Down in the Delta
Character: Annie Sinclair
A single mother plagued by alcohol and drug addictions is sent with her children from Chicago to her ancestral home in the Mississippi Delta, to live with her uncle and aunt for the summer....
See China and Die
Character: Momma Sykes
A maid who reads detective stories finds herself embroiled in a real life mystery involving her dead boss and a mysterious statue he brought back from China....
To Dance with the White Dog
Character: Neelie
When Sam Peek's beloved wife, Cora, dies, a white dog suddenly materializes as his new companion and confidant....
Ethnic Notions
Character: Narrator
This documentary traces the deep-rooted stereotypes which have fueled anti-black prejudice....
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
Character: Momma
Based on writer Maya Angelou's eloquent reminiscences of her days as a gifted youngster growing up in the South during the Depression years where she and her older brother were raised by their grandmother after the divorce of their parents....
Summer of My German Soldier
Character: Ruth
Patty Bergen is a teenager in a Jewish family living in the American South during World War II. Patty feels like an outcast even in her own family and is unable to understand why her father can't seem to love her. Her town eventually becomes host to a prisoner of war camp. A young German soldier escapes from this camp, and Patty finds him hiding in her secret place in the woods outside of town. After getting to know him, she ends up harboring him from his captors and, in the way of many adolesce...
Age-Old Friends
Character: Mrs. Baker
John Cooper is in a retirement home. There are strict rules for the residents, but he refuses to fall into passivity. He flirts constantly with Nurse Wilson and spends time with his best buddy Michael Aylott, who's slowly drifting into senility....
Message from Nam
Character: Queenie / Elizabeth McQueen
Journalism Major Paxton Andrews loses the man she loves in the Vietnam War. Always having followed the beat of a different drum, she decides to work out her grief by going to Vietnam and writing a column that will hopefully help those at home better understand the War....
The Mighty Quinn
Character: Ubu Pearl
Police chief Xavier Quinn investigates the gruesome murder of Donald Pater, one of the wealthiest residents on a Caribbean island. He was found decapitated in his Jacuzzi. Although the local political establishment, especially crooked Governor Chalk, insists that small-time thief Maubee is responsible, Xavier has his doubts. This view is complicated by the police chief's personal history with Maubee: The men have been friends since childhood....
P.K. and the Kid
Character: Mim
P.K. runs away from home because her step-father keeps on harassing her sexually and her mother is ignoring the problem. She hides in the loading space of Kid Kane's pickup, who's on the way to the world championships in arm-wrestling. When he discovers her, he wants to send her home at first, but after he knows the story he takes her with him - and gets himself into big trouble: her step-father is behind them furiously, trying to kidnap her and take revenge for the stress he got from her mother...
My Fellow Americans
Character: Rita
They used to run the country. Now they're running for their lives! Two on-the-lam former Presidents of the United States. Framed in a scandal by the current President and pursued by armed agents, the two squabbling political foes plunge into a desperately frantic search for the evidence that will establish their innocence....
Rosewood
Character: Aunt Sarah
Spurred by a white woman's lie, vigilantes destroy a black Florida town and slay inhabitants in 1923....
Up the Down Staircase
Character: Teacher
Sylvia, a novice schoolteacher, is hired to teach English in a high school, but she’s met with an apathetic faculty, a delinquent student body and an administration that drowns its staff in paperwork. The following days go from bad to worse as Sylvia struggles to reach her most troubled students....
Don't Play Us Cheap
Character: Miss Maybell
As an African American family and friends gather in an apartment for a house party, two mischief-making devil-bats take human form in order to break up the party....
A Raisin in the Sun
Character: Lena 'Mama' Younger
A substantial insurance payment could mean either financial salvation or personal ruin for a poor black family....
Color Adjustment
Character: Self
From Amos 'n' Andy to Nat King Cole, from Roots to The Cosby Show, black people have played many roles on primetime television. Brilliantly weaving clips from classic TV shows with commentary from TV producers, black actors and scholars, Marlon Riggs blends humor, insight, and thoughtful analysis to explore the evolution of black/white relations as reflected by America's favorite addiction....
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet
Character: Nurse
The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a 1982 film adaptation of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, directed by William Woodman and starring Alex Hyde-White as Romeo and Blanche Baker as Juliet....
The Kid Who Loved Christmas
Character: Esther Clayton
In this sentimental holiday tale, a young boy is taken away from his loving, adoptive household when his new mom is killed in an auto accident and his traveling musician dad is deemed unfit to care for him, being on the road too much. Now, the only thing that can help is if a cold, bureaucratic adoption agency caseworker sees the error of her ways and allows them to be together....
Train Ride
Character: Dean of Students
Three college seniors who are thinking about nothing but graduation and going out with a bang from college, harshly discover that a culmination of four years of hard work can lead to a permanent road to perdition after they decide to experiment with the knockout "date rape" drug on a vulnerable, impressionable, and very attractive freshman girl. Events quickly become a "Train Ride" for all parties involved, and end up spiraling out of control into a roller-coaster of unpredictable, virulent even...