Julia (1968 TV series)
Diahann Carroll
Julia is an American television sitcom and the first weekly series to star an African-American woman in a non-stereotypical role. Previous television series featured African-American lead characters, but the characters were usually servants. The show starred actress and singer Diahann Carroll, and ran for 86 episodes on NBC from September 17, 1968, to March 23, 1971. The series was produced by Savannah Productions, Inc., Hanncarr Productions, Inc., and 20th Century Fox Television.
During pre-production, the proposed series title was Mama’s Man. The series was among the few situation comedies in the late 1960s that did not use a laugh track; however, 20th Century-Fox Television added one when the series was reissued for syndication and cable rebroadcasts in the late 1980s.
Julia was among the first acquisitions made by ASPiRE for its inaugural season in 2012.
In Julia , Diahann Carroll played a widowed single mother, Julia Baker (her husband, Army Capt. Baker, an O-1 Bird Dog artillery spotter pilot who had been shot down in Vietnam), who was a nurse in a doctor’s office at a large aerospace company. The doctor, Morton Chegley, was played by Lloyd Nolan, and Julia’s romantic interests by Paul Winfield and Fred Williamson. Julia’s son, Corey (Marc Copage) was approximately six to nine years old during the series run. He had barely known his father before he died. Corey’s best friend was Earl J. Waggedorn, whom Corey almost always addressed and referred to precisely by his full name, though other characters (particularly his mother) would refer to him simply as Earl. The Waggedorns lived downstairs in the same apartment building, with their father, police officer Leonard (Hank Brandt), stay-at-home mother Marie (Betty Beaird), and two sons, Earl and an infant whose first name is never revealed.
The first two seasons included nurse Hannah Yarby (Lurene Tuttle), who left to be married at the beginning of the third season, just as the clinic’s manager, Brockmeyer, ordered downsizing — and removal of minorities from employment. (Chegley let Yarby go but kept Julia in defiance of the manager’s edict. She was also kept after Chegley reminded Brockmeyer that such a move was a violation of the Civil Rights Act, which was just five years old at that point.) The second and third seasons included Richard (Richard Steele), a boy some one or two years older than Corey. Chegley’s uncle, Dr. Norton Chegley (also played by Lloyd Nolan), made three appearances. The series’ first episode was filmed in October 1967, a year before the pilot was picked up.
Television Cast
- Diahann Carroll as Julia Baker
- Marc Copage as Corey Baker
- Betty Beaird as Marie Waggedorn
- Ned Glass as Sol Cooper (17 episodes, 1968–1970)
- Janear Hines as Roberta (1970–71)
- Eugene Jackson as Uncle Lou (1968–69)
- Michael Link as Earl J. Waggedorn
- Don Marshall as Ted Neumann (1968–70)
- Alison Susan Mills as Carol Deering
- Lloyd Nolan as Dr. Morton Chegley
- Mary Wickes as Melba Chegley (Dr. Chegley’s wife)
- Steve Pendleton as Mr. Bennett (6 episodes, 1968–1970)
- Eddie Quillan as Eddie Edson (17 episodes, 1968–71)
- Lurene Tuttle as Nurse Hannah Yarby (32 episodes, 1968–70)
- Hank Brandt as Leonard Waggedorn[3] (27 episodes, 1968–71)
- Fred Williamson as Steve Bruce (1970–71)
- Paul Winfield as Paul Cameron
- Diana Sands as Cousin Sarah Porter (1970-1971)