A professor of theatre arts where she taught black theatre studies at UCLA
Best remembered as the feisty, ill-fated housekeeper done in by Bette Davis in What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962).
Had one son.
Inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, 1977.
Once awarded Los Angeles Woman of the Year for her community services; also received the N.A.A.C.P. Award for Contribution to Education.
She is interred at Meadowbrook Memory Gardens in her birthplace of Villa Rica, Georgia.