Ena Hartman, a pioneering Black actress who had a daily position reverse Burt Reynolds on the 1970-71 ABC cop present Dan August, has died. She was 93.
Hartman died April 16 of pure causes at her residence in Van Nuys, her goddaughter Lorraine Foxworth advised The Hollywood Reporter.
Hartman additionally is thought for her starring flip because the powerful lady Carmen Simms alongside Tom Selleck, Don Marshall, Roger E. Mosley, Phyllis Davis and Marta Kristen within the cult prison-set movie Terminal Island (1973), written and directed by Stephanie Rothman.
She assisted Lee J. Cobb’s character within the spy spoof Our Man Flint (1966), starring James Coburn; performed a celebration visitor in Video games (1967), starring James Caan, Simone Signoret and Katharine Ross; and was a flight attendant in Airport (1970).
And in firsts for NBC in 1968, she appeared on the inaugural episode of Adam-12 and within the telefilm Prescription Homicide, which starred Peter Falk in his preliminary outing as Columbo.
In one of many uncommon common TV roles given to Black actresses again then, Hartman stood out because the sensible, no-nonsense police dispatcher Katy Grant on Dan August, which starred Reynolds because the titular cop investigating homicides in his hometown of Santa Luisa, California.
Nonetheless, the collection, which additionally featured Richard Anderson and Norman Fell, lasted only one season and 26 episodes.
From left: Ned Romero, Richard Anderson, Burt Reynolds, Norman Fell and Ena Hartman from ABC’s ‘Dan August.’
Courtesy Everett Assortment
Earlier, Hartman had an opportunity to hit it huge when famed actress-singer Dorothy Dandridge picked her to play her in a deliberate biopic that was to star Sidney Poitier as effectively. Poitier, although, determined within the remaining levels to go on the movie, and it was by no means made.
(Hartman did get to be Poitier’s visitor on the 1964 Academy Awards when he grew to become the primary Black man to win the Oscar for greatest actor.)
Later, she was stated to be within the working to play Lieutenant Uhura on NBC’s Star Trek and one of many nuns in Elvis Presley’s Change of Behavior (1969), however she misplaced out to Nichelle Nichols and Barbara McNair, respectively. (She would seem on the first-season Trek episode “The Corbomite Maneuver.”)
The daughter of sharecroppers, Gerthaline Henry was born on April 1, 1932, in Moscow, Arkansas. Raised by her grandparents, she moved to Buffalo, New York, when she was 13 to stay along with her mom.
She dropped out of highschool to open a restaurant and would earn sufficient cash to go to New York Metropolis, the place she would undertake a stage identify, turn out to be a high mannequin on the town and examine drama with Josh Shelley and A Raisin within the Solar director Lloyd Richards.
Hartman participated in an NBC-sponsored expertise competitors for younger actors and actresses, and that acquired her a expertise contract from the community — stated to be the primary such deal for any Black actor. (Ebony journal in 1962 reported that the “grooming” contract was for 5 years at $12,000 a 12 months. “It’s probably the most thrilling factor that’s ever occurred to me,” she stated.)
In 1964, she made her onscreen debuts on an episode of Bonanza and within the sequel characteristic The New Interns. And after NBC, she signed a contract with Common and was named honorary mayor of Common Metropolis in 1968.
Hartman additionally confirmed up on such collection as Profiles in Braveness, The Farmer’s Daughter, Tarzan, Ironside, It Takes a Thief, Dragnet 1967, The Identify of the Recreation, The Outsider, Ironside and, for her remaining onscreen credit score, a 1975 episode of Police Story.
Along with her goddaughter, survivors embody her son, Doug, and daughter-in-law, Kimberly.