ALL: Best performances by Black actors on soaps

[ReddFoxx]

Had been meaning to start this topic earlier in the month but never got around to it. What are some of the best performances by Black performers in daytime? Y&R had some pretty great performances by Tonya Lee Williams (AIDS storyline) and Victoria Rowell (Dru confronting her mother) which have become iconic overall and of course Debbi Morgan has always received acclaim for AMC, but I'm curious about other great performances outside of what is iconic and performances that don't get much recognition.

[Liberty City]

[Titus Andronicus]

Probably no way to find any of these scenes:

1984: Abe finds Roman's hideaway. The two have a dramatic conversation where Roman gets through to Abe. The radio then broadcasts that there's been another murder. That's when Abe admits that for all the good their talk did them, it wasn't until the broadcast that he realized Roman was telling the truth, that he wasn't the Slasher.

1985: Abe scenes after Richard Cates murders Theo. The whole storyline was pretty good. Arguably James Reynolds' best stuff.

[Chris B]

Debbi Morgan did some amazing work when she returned to AMC!

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You can take any scene of Victoria Rowell on Y&R. She truly embodied that character and I'd say Dru was one of the greatest soap characters of all time.

Now while I don't have a specific clip, I've been watching ATWT from 1998 and I just finished 1999 and Cassandra Creech was such a strong addition to the show that I'm shocked she didn't stay until it ended and become a big star. She was heavy in story in 99 and more than held her own. As I continue watching Im reall curious how she ends up being written off because her performances are so strong and her character is connected to the core families.

[Khan]

I thought Lynne Thigpen did some amazing work as AMC's Grace Keefer, who suffered a breakdown and kidnapped Derek and Mimi Frye's baby, Danielle, because she blamed Mimi, a police officer, for the death of her son, Tony, and wanted to raise Danielle to make up for the mistakes she thought she had made with Tony.  (Jeff Beldner, Hal Corley and Michelle Patrick wrote some amazing stuff for her as well).  As I've said in the past, there wasn't much about AMC after 1992 or so that I really cared for, but I do think their AA cast contingent throughout the '90's - Thigpen, Shari Headley, Tonya Pinkins, Amelia Marshall, even Keith Hamilton Cobb with his arrogant-as-hell ass - was one of TV's strongest.

Another candidate: Petronia Paley, who acted the hell out of one of Megan McTavish's most tasteless storylines on GL.  (Basically, her character, Vivian's, daughter fell for a man who'd turn out to be her biological father...which Vivian knew all along).  Although I remember the performances in that particular story were good and getting a decent amount of airtime, I still thought it was a tremendous come-down from before, when Nancy Curlee and her team wrote such beautiful material for Paley, Amelia Marshall, Monti Sharp, Vince Williams and Nia Long.

I've been trying like hell to find and watch that material again on YT, but I can't.

[vetsoapfan]

It is an acknowledged landmark of daytime TV, but I did want to mention Ellen Holly's and Lillian Heyman's stellar work on One Life to Live, when Clara was desperate to pass for white. Her confrontation scenes with her mother were particularly outstanding.

Years later, Al Freeman, Jr., was Al Freeman Jr., and always shone in his scenes.

Paul Raunch really f***ed up, yet again, when he fired these beloved vets.

[BetterForgotten]

By far, I think AMC had the strongest AA contingent of any of the ABC soaps in the 90’s.

The black characters on Curlee’s GL felt real and never like tokens. I totally bought Hamp and Billy as best friends, David and Bridget as two broken youths bonding in the discovery of their selves, Gilly as the voice of reason at WSPR in the middle of Roger and Holly’s shenanigans, etc. They were embedded in Springfield society. Too bad subsequent regimes didn’t see it that way.

I also didn’t know how rare it would be at the time to see Monti Sharp and Kristoff St. John (and later Shemar Moore) as the younger leading men in this respective soaps. That really hasn’t happen again for younger black leads since then. 

[teplin]

AW gave Petronia some heavyweight talent to act with in 1982: Morgan Freeman, Howard Rollins Jr., Robert Christian and Michele Shay. All were very good but the writing didn't match their abilities. 

[DramatistDreamer]

I think I have posted multiple video clips over the years of performances, so I won’t post them again but if anyone wants to dig through threads, provided they haven’t disappeared, you might be able to find some of them. 
Guiding Light was mentioned and Kat (Nia Long) and David (Monti Sharp) were quite a saga and provided some powerful performances.

As The World Turns certainly did not want for talent as they had theater greats like Novella Nelson, Tonya Pinkins and Count Stovall. I will always remember the combative family scene where Winkler bitterly complains about the cops who killed one of his sons and now his other son is a cop. I was really disappointed that Roy’s family was diminished over the years and the relationship between Heather and Roy dissolved.  I know Count Stovall and Tonya Pinkins haven’t been asked about this, but I always wondered whether they have any insight into what happened.

[BoldRestless]

I've had to private this, but making it unlisted again. Such a brilliant scene.

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[kalbir]

In that same era there was also Dondre T. Whitfield and Keith Hamilton Cobb on All My Children, and Thyme Lewis on Days, but I don't know if they were considered younger leads on their shows.

Edited February 25, 2024 by kalbir

[Faulkner]

Yeah. Agnes and AMC were really committed to a diverse canvas. The Wards on GH had a moment under Labine, but GH has never had a long term commitment to its Black characters. But that moment under Labine was special: The Black characters addressed race with a frankness I’ve not seen elsewhere in daytime while not making “race” the only thing they brought to the show. This performance by Joseph C. Phillips as Justus at Mary Mae’s funeral is great:

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And this is amazing. Would any other soap allow Black characters to lampoon their core white family in such a way? Actually suggesting they might be anything other than pure and open-hearted about race, even sainted Lila? Devon, Mamie, and Nate can’t even really talk about the elephant in the room with Jill and Billy on Y&R.

 

Edited February 25, 2024 by Faulkner

[Vee]

Didn't this get shouted out as MVJ's work on social media recently? The range of responses in the room seem very real.

[dc11786]

On "Generations," the bedrock of the show was the friendship between Doreen Jackson and Ruth Marshall. Both women had grown up poor and had elevated themselves into the upper echeleons of Chicago society while still facing discrimination. Doreen married old money Martin Jackson, who was involved in investment management. It was through Martin that Doreen came to know Ruth and Henry Marshall, the owners of several South Side ice cream shops that Martin helped to develop into a national food brand. Ruth had been supporting her husband along the way, and, in the clip alone, had ambitions of her own which included owning the home her mother Vivian had worked as a maid. 

Here is an episode featuring the women individually from the first months of the series. Both women have a strong sense of who their charactes are even from the beginning. Here:

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Ruth and Doreen were good friends. Doreen often had to keep it real with Ruth, who hoped that money would help to avoid racial tension. Both women worked together on the Womens' Art Council. They also were supportive of each other in good times, and bad, as well see in this clip:

 

the Maya and Doreen catfight is always cited, but I think some of the scenes leading up to it are equally important. In this clip, Ruth Marshall confronts Doreen over the revelation that Danielle is Ruth's grandchild, a secret Doreen had been keeping for many months. The delicious irony of this sequence is that Ruth herself is embarking on the start of her own story where it is revealed she has been hiding the paternity of her own daughter, Chantal Marshall, from the rest of the world. Chantal was the daughter of Peter Whitmore, not her husband Henry. Henry was aware that Chantal wasn't his, but he wasn't aware (if I recall correctly) that Peter was the man in question. 

And finally, here is a bit from the final days when Peter Whitmore has returned. Doreen, who had been established as a saloon singer in the earliest of episodes, becomes enchanted when she learns Peter is reopening his old jazz club, the Music Box. Doreen is determined to work with Peter to get back into a business that she knows increasingly well. The connection to Peter is still developing as the show comes to it's conclusion and before Ruth's secret that Peter is her father's daughter can be revealed publically.

 

 

 

[Faulkner]

Yeah, I remember she said it either to SOD or Michael Logan years ago, giving Claire Labine credit for the freedom to write such honest material.

Edited February 26, 2024 by Faulkner