Olga James, a Star of ‘Carmen Jones’ and ‘Mr. Wonderful,’ Dies at 95
Olga James, an actress and operatic soprano whose career highlights occurred nearly back to back in the mid-1950s — as Harry Belafonte’s jilted girlfriend in the all-Black musical film “Carmen Jones” and as Sammy Davis Jr.’s love interest in the Broadway show “Mr. Wonderful” — died on Jan. 25 in Los Angeles. She was 95.
Her death, in an assisted living facility, was confirmed by her niece Janet Adderley.
Ms. James had performed with an opera company in France and in a popular musical revue in Atlantic City, N.J., when her manager, Abe Saperstein — the basketball impresario behind the Harlem Globetrotters — landed her an audition in 1954 for “Carmen Jones,” the movie version of Oscar Hammerstein II’s hit 1943 Broadway update of Georges Bizet’s opera “Carmen.” The opera is set in 1820s Spain; the setting of the film, like that of the Broadway musical, is the American South during World War II.
Auditioning for the role of Cindy Lou, whose boyfriend, Joe (played by Mr. Belafonte), a soldier headed for flight school, is seduced by Carmen (Dorothy Dandridge), a worker in a parachute factory, Ms. James sang an aria at the Alvin Theater (now the Neil Simon Theater) for Otto Preminger, the film’s imperious director.
“It wasn’t a stretch for me,” she was quoted as saying in “Otto Preminger: The Man Who Would Be King” (2007), by Foster Hirsch. “I was that character, a country-looking girl. I was just a little ingénue.”
She won the role. “Carmen Jones” would be her first movie — and her last.
Of the film’s three lead performers, only Ms. James did her own singing; Mr. Belafonte’s and Ms. Dandridge’s songs were dubbed because they could not sing in an operatic range.
Ms. James won praise for her performance. Writing in The New Pittsburgh Courier, Izzy Rowe said she “creates a name for herself nationally with this one performance.” Mae Tinee of The Chicago Tribune called her portrayal of Cindy Lou “the distillation of simple goodness.”
The show — with music and lyrics by Jerry Bock, Larry Holofcener and George Weiss — ran for 383 performances. Ms. James soon left for a tour of Europe, where she was lauded for her singing in nightclubs and on television.
“Miss Wonderful is truly wonderful,” The Associated Negro Press, a wire service, wrote.
Olga James was born on Feb. 16, 1929, in Washington. Her mother, Lucille (Smith) James, was a singer and a dancer, and her father, Ralph, was a saxophonist. After they divorced when she was young, Olga was raised by a grandmother.
Ms. James, whose singing was heard on local radio when she was a child, received a scholarship to the Juilliard School and graduated in 1952 with a bachelor’s degree in voice.
Despite being in significant projects like “Carmen Jones” and “Mr. Wonderful,” Ms. James was never in another feature film or Broadway show. She had come of age at a time when very few Black performers found an easy path to success.
Donald Bogle, an authority on Black cinema history who interviewed Ms. James for his 1999 book, “Dorothy Dandridge: A Biography,” said in an interview: “Hollywood didn’t have a place for Olga. The same was true of Dorothy. She got an Oscar nomination” — for “Carmen Jones” — “but the industry didn’t have a place for her.”
Debra Martin Chase, a film, TV and theater producer who was a friend of Ms. James’s, said in an interview: “She went to Juilliard when Black people didn’t go there. She was beautiful. She had a gorgeous voice. She had all this talent. But there were no roles.”
Her career advanced somewhat under the radar.
She sang in a show called “Sepia Revue” with Mr. Belafonte, Ms. Dandridge and other Black performers, after showings of “Carmen Jones” in Spokane, Wash., and Portland, Ore., in 1956. She also appeared in “A Raisin in the Sun” in London; played nightclub and concert dates; and portrayed Tuptim, a rebellious young woman presented as a gift to the despotic king of Siam, in a tour of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “The King and I” in 1963.
In a recurring role, she played the sister-in-law of Bill Cosby’s character on his first sitcom, “The Bill Cosby Show,” from 1969 to 1971. She also played roles in theatrical productions staged by the Inner City Cultural Center in Los Angeles in the 1960s and ’70s.
Frustrated with the unpredictability of her acting career — and the racism behind it — she looked to a career in counseling as an alternative, her niece Ms. Adderley said. She started training as a therapist in 1983; earned a master’s degree in psychology from Antioch University Los Angeles in 1989; and treated clients for several years.
In addition to Ms. Adderley, an actress and acting teacher, Ms. James is survived by another niece, Alison Adderley, and a nephew, Nat Adderley Jr., a composer, arranger and keyboardist.
Near the end of “Carmen Jones,” Ms. James demonstrated her strength as an actress — and hinted at the star that she might have been — when she sang a lament for losing Joe to Carmen. The camera barely moved as she gave an emotional reading of “My Joe.” She sang, in part:
He got hisself another woman.
Did she feel his arms all around her.
No, Lord, I can’t believe it’s so.
No! No! Don’t you let her keep my Joe.
Make him throw her back where he found her!
Joe! You said that both your arms was mine.