Ralph Carter | |
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Born | Ralph David Carter May 30, 1961 |
Nationality | American |
Occupations |
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Years active | 1970–2005 |
Known for | Michael Evans – Good Times |
Spouses | Lisa Parks (m. 1987;div. 1992)River York (m. 1994) |
Ralph David Carter (born May 30, 1961) is an American actor and singer, best remembered as Michael Evans, the youngest child of Florida and James Evans Sr., on the CBS sitcom Good Times from 1974 to 1979. [1] Before joining Good Times, Carter appeared in the Broadway musical Raisin, based on the Lorraine Hansberry drama A Raisin in the Sun , as was noted in the credits during the first season. [2]
Carter started on Broadway at just nine years old in the musical The Me Nobody Knows . After runs in Tough To Get Help, Dude and Via Galactica , [3] he landed his breakout role as Travis Younger in Raisin , for which he won the 1973 Drama Desk Award for Most Promising Performer as well as the 1974 Theatre World Award and a nomination for the 1974 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical. [4]
Norman Lear was enjoying huge success in the 1970s, with the hit television series All in the Family , Sanford and Son , and Maude . Lear developed Good Times as a spin-off series for Maude's housekeeper, Florida Evans (portrayed by Esther Rolle) and her husband Henry (John Amos), who was renamed James. [5] Because of Carter's success in Raisin, Lear bought out the remainder of his Broadway contract to cast him as the first original character of Good Times, James and Florida's youngest son, Michael.
In 1975, Carter recorded an album called Young and in Love [6] and performed a cover of the Ruby & The Romantics 1964 song "When You're Young and in Love" on Soul Train . That song, along with "Extra, Extra (Read All About It)", charted at No. 10 and No. 12 respectively. [7] In 1985, he released a single called "Get it Right".
In 2005, Carter appeared in the cast of "Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death" for the Classical Theatre of Harlem Company. [8]
Wolf Martin Garber, known professionally as Bill Macy, was an American television, film and stage actor known for his role in the CBS television series Maude (1972–1978).
Sir Trevor Robert Nunn is an English theatre director. He has been the artistic director for the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Royal National Theatre, and, currently, the Theatre Royal Haymarket. He has directed dramas for the stage, including Macbeth, as well as opera and musicals, such as Cats (1981) and Les Misérables (1985).
Good Times is an American television sitcom that aired for six seasons on CBS, from February 8, 1974, to August 1, 1979. Created by Eric Monte and Mike Evans and developed by executive producer Norman Lear, it was television's first African American two-parent family sitcom. It is a spin-off of Maude, itself a spin-off of All in the Family.
Esther Elizabeth Rolle was an American actress. She is best known for her role as Florida Evans, on the CBS television sitcom Maude, for two seasons (1972–1974), and its spin-off series Good Times, for which she was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy in 1976. In 1979, Rolle won the Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Limited Series or Special for the television film Summer of My German Soldier.
John Allen Amos Jr. was an American actor. He was best known for his role as the adult Kunta Kinte in the landmark miniseries Roots and for portraying James Evans Sr. on the CBS television series Good Times. His other television work includes The Mary Tyler Moore Show, a recurring role as Admiral Percy Fitzwallace on The West Wing, and the role of the Mayor of Washington DC Ethan Baker in the series The District. Amos was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award and an NAACP Image Award. In film, he played numerous supporting roles in movies such as The Beastmaster (1982), Coming to America (1988), Lock Up (1989), Die Hard 2 (1990), and Coming 2 America (2021).
Jeannette Theresa Dubois, known professionally as Ja'Net DuBois, Ja'net DuBois, and Ja'Net Du Bois, was an American actress and singer. She was best known for her portrayal of Willona Woods, the neighborhood gossip maven and a friend of the Evans family on the CBS sitcom Good Times, which aired from 1974 to 1979. DuBois additionally cowrote and sang the theme song "Movin' On Up" for The Jeffersons, which aired from 1975 until 1985. After beginning her career on the stage in the early 1960s, DuBois appeared on television shows and in films into the mid-2010s.
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Raisin is a musical with music by Judd Woldin, lyrics by Robert Brittan, and a book by Robert Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg. It is an adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play A Raisin in the Sun; the musical's book was co-written by Hansberry's husband, Robert Nemiroff.
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Tom Eyen was an American playwright, lyricist, television writer and director. He received a Tony Award for Best Book of a Musical for Dreamgirls in 1981.
Dude (The Highway Life) is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Gerome Ragni and music by Galt MacDermot. It is an allegory about good and evil, the conflict between mankind's creative and destructive urges, the power of love, and the joy to be found in simple pleasures. Dude is an everyman who loses his innocence and fights to regain it.
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A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances with an insurance payout following the death of the father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination, racism, and assimilation. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named it the best play of 1959, and in recent years publications such as The Independent and Time Out have listed it among the best plays ever written.
James Monroe Iglehart is an American actor and comic book writer. He is perhaps best known for his Tony Award-winning performance as the Genie in the original Broadway production of Aladdin. Iglehart assumed the roles of the Marquis de Lafayette and Thomas Jefferson in the Broadway cast of Hamilton in April 2017. He recreated the role of King Arthur in the 2023 Broadway revival of Spamalot and played Louis Armstrong in the Broadway company of A Wonderful World. He can be heard as super producer Steve Jones in As The Curtain Rises, Broadway's first original podcast soap opera. More recently, Iglehart joined the cast of the animated webseries Helluva Boss, as both the Demon Lord of Lust Asmodeus/Ozzie and hellhound bodyguard Vortex, and Hazbin Hotel, as Zestial, as well having written for Marvel Comics, primarily one-shots featuring Spider-Man.
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