Remembering Nell Carter (1948 – 2003)
I came to know about Nell Carter’s Broadway success much later in adulthood. However, as a kid, I remember watching Nell Carter on Gimmie A Break starring alongside Thelma Hopkins. My favorite episode, of course, was when she sang the song On Broadway.
Nell Carter’s life was a study in extremes. She endured personal tragedies and chronic health problems, yet she achieved a level of success that most young singers and actors only dream of. She knew both the pain of addiction and the triumph of successfully kicking her habits. And, while she made great money during her award-winning career, she also knew what it was like to lose everything.
Born Nell Ruth Hardy on September 13, 1948 in Birmingham, Alabama, Carter was a singer from the beginning. She sang in her church choir as a child, and on a local gospel radio show. And she also knew tragedy from the beginning: her father was killed when she was just two years old, electrocuted when stepping on a live power line. Young Nell witnessed the accident.
That wasn’t the end of her early troubles. At 16, she was raped at gunpoint. She became pregnant and gave birth to a daughter, Tracey. The teenaged Nell felt too young and scared to raise a child, and Tracey was brought up by her aunt Willie. Willie wasn’t the only sibling who was there for Nell during this devastating time – her brother Bernard was also a voice of support and reason, especially in the face of hurtful comments from their mother.
With the help of her siblings, she was able to get past her troubled childhood and stride into the spotlight. At age 19, she moved from Alabama to New York City, changing her last name to Carter and getting her show-biz start singing in supper clubs. Before long, she broke into stage work, with a role in 1970’s Soon, which also starred Richard Gere and Barry Bostwick. Carter started getting noticed, leading to bigger and better shows and finally her role in Ain’t Misbehavin’ on Broadway.
The role would win her 1978’s Tony for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. Her big voice and dynamic performances brought her even more fame. She landed a role in the movieHair, followed by costarring TV roles in Ryan’s Hope and Lobo. And then in 1981 came her biggest project, the role that screams “Nell Carter” to most people: Gimme a Break!
For six years, Carter played Nell Harper, housekeeper to a widowed police chief and his three teen daughters. As a confidante and mother figure to the girls, Carter got to showcase the many facets of her talent – she was warm and loving, sassy and funny; she could do physical comedy; she could handle storylines featuring social issues like racism and mental illness. And, of course, she could sing. In addition to recording the show’s theme song, Carter occasionally got a chance to sing within an episode.
Gimme a Break! was a hit and Carter received Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. Yet even as she was achieving her greatest professional success, her personal life was spiraling out of control.
In 1982, Carter married Georg Krynicki. Just 18 months later he left her because of her recently acquired drug habit. Carter had begun experimenting with cocaine while in the cast of Ain’t Misbehavin’, and the experimentation became regular use. She estimated that at the height of her addiction, she was spending $1000 to $2000 or more a day on drugs. She attempted suicide and struggled with her faith. It took several trips to rock bottom – each followed by a stint in rehab – before Carter was able to successfully kick her habit. But she did. In the mid-‘80s, friend Liza Minnelli put her on a plane to rehab clinic Hazelden in Minnesota, where many weeks of therapy finally stuck. Carter remained clean afterward, and she later reflected, “Thank God I got help. God and Liza Minnelli.”
