Emmy Award-winning Broadway and film star Olivia Cole has passed away. The veteran actress, who is most famous for her role as Mathilda in the iconic Roots television miniseries, was found dead in San Miguel Allende, Mexico home of an apparent heart attack on January 19.
Cole had an acting career that spanned back to her debut on The Great White Way in 1966. For nearly a decade after graduating from London's Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, Cole displayed her skills as a thespian, with credits in such plays as The School for Scandal, Right You Are If You Think You Are, We, Comrades Three, You Can't Take It with You, War and Peace, The Merchant of Venice, and The National Health.
In spite of what turned out to be a respectable run on Broadway, though, the Memphis born actress got her big break in 1977, when ABC brought Alex Haley's epic 1976 novel, Roots: The Saga of an American Family, to the small screen. Cole was selected to play Ben Vereen’s character Chicken George's wife in the series, and her performance as such was so riveting it earned her the '77 Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy or Drama Series. Two years later, Cole would be nominated for a second Emmy for her work as Maggie Rogers in Backstairs at the White House.
Cole would go on to work in several other television projects in the 1970's, 80's and 90's, with parts in Szysznyk, Report to Murphy, North and South, The Women of Brewster Place, and L.A. Law.
She was 75-years-old.
Source: nydailynews.com
