Esther Rolle, best known as the sharp-tongued Florida Evans on “Maude” and “Good Times,” died on November 17, 1998, at Brotman Memorial Hospital in Culver City, California. She was 78. The actress had suffered from diabetes and had been undergoing dialysis for several months before her death. Born November 8, 1920, in Pompano Beach, Florida, Rolle was the tenth of 18 children.
Her father was a vegetable farmer and a gifted storyteller, a talent that inspired Rolle and her siblings to form their own drama troupe as teenagers, performing throughout Florida in the 1930s. At 18, she moved to New York City to join two older sisters who were pursuing acting careers. One sister, Estelle Evans, later appeared in “To Kill a Mockingbird. ” The other, Rosanna Carter, played a judge in “She-Devil.
” Unlike her siblings, Rolle initially wanted to be a writer, but her writing teacher saw more promise in her acting and encouraged her to take drama classes. During the 1940s, Rolle found steady work as a dancer, spending 12 years with the Asadata Dafora dance troupe before joining a company called the Calypso Carousel in 1955. By her early thirties, she had married, and her husband pressed slacks at a dry cleaner. Rolle settled happily into domestic life, expressing her enthusiasm through cooking.
When the marriage ended five years later, she had gained considerable weight, a change that ironically helped her career. “The image of a black woman was always a fat black woman,” she told People magazine in 1990. By then, Rolle had become a founding member of the Negro Ensemble Company. Over the next several years, she appeared in Broadway productions, and in 1972 she landed the role of Florida Evans, a supporting part as an African-American maid in a liberal white household on the CBS sitcom “Maude.
” Created by Norman Lear, the show made Rolle’s character a cousin to Archie Bunker from “All in the Family. ” Rolle stayed on for two seasons, and her character frequently traded pointed barbs with the well-meaning but naively liberal family members. Her success on “Maude” led to a bigger opportunity when Lear and the producers decided to create a spin-off centered on Florida Evans’ home life. “Good Times” debuted in early 1974 and made television history as the first African-American sitcom with two parents in the lead roles.
It was an instant success. But behind the scenes, Rolle grew frustrated with the direction of the show. After the end of the 1976–77 season, she left the series. “I did not agree to do a clown show for you to degrade young black men,” she later told People in 1990, recalling her struggle with the producers.
Her departure followed that of John Amos, who played her husband, the previous year. Her character’s absence was explained on the show by a remarriage, though she did return for the 1978–79 season. In the years that followed, Rolle took on other projects. She won an Emmy for her supporting role in the television special “The Summer of My German Soldier,” appeared on stage in “Washington and Mrs.
Horowitz,” and starred in a revival of “A Raisin in the Sun. ” In 1989, she played Idella, the housekeeper opposite Morgan Freeman and Jessica Tandy, in the film adaptation of “Driving Miss Daisy. ” Playing a maid once again did not trouble her. In 1990, Rolle sustained serious injuries in a car accident in Nevada but recovered quickly enough to resume a busy schedule of charitable work, including involvement with women’s rights issues and urban education reform.
Her efforts earned her several awards, including an NAACP leadership award and a human rights award from the American Federation of Teachers. Rolle continued acting into the 1990s, appearing in television movies and miniseries as well as films. She had small roles in “House of Cards” (1993), “How to Make an American Quilt” (1995), and “My Fellow Americans” (1996) before taking on the larger role of Sara in the critically acclaimed 1997 film “Rosewood.
”