RIP Nell Carter "Gimme a Break"

[zimmerman pt3]

fare thee well my honey

Gimme a Break! star Nell Carter dies at 54

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Nell Carter, who played the sassy, matronly housekeeper on the 1980s sitcom Gimme a Break! and received a Tony Award in 1978 for her performance in the Broadway musical Ain't Misbehavin', died today, her publicist said. She was 54.

The singer-actor collapsed in her Beverly Hills home and was found by one of her 13-year-old sons, spokesman Roger Lane said.

Carter had been diabetic for years, Lane added, and had a brain aneurysm removed in 1992. She recovered and continued to perform, mostly on stage.

Carter was in rehearsals at a Long Beach theatre for Raisin, the musical version of Raisin in the Sun.

In addition to Carter's Tony win for Ain't Misbehavin', she won an Emmy in 1982 for a TV broadcast of the show.

Her NBC comedy Gimme a Break! ran from 1981 to 1987, and garnered two more Emmy nominations, in 1982 and 1983.

In 1985, an episode of the show was broadcast live — the first for a situation comedy in nearly 30 years. Carter and her costars performed flawlessly, and at the end, she threw up her arms and yelled, "We did it!"

Growing up in Birmingham, Ala., Carter listened to her mother's recordings of Dinah Washington and B.B. King, and her brother's Elvis Presley records. She liked Doris Day, the Andrews Sisters, Johnny Mathis, and admired the work of Cleo Laine and Barbra Streisand.

Carter said she would have preferred to be an opera singer. ``When I was growing up, it was not something you aspired to," she said in 1988. "I was a weirdo to want to be in show business. Most kids wanted to be teachers or nurses."

[Phred]

RIP Nell.

[Hux]

WHY - GOD?? - WHY!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!