| Name |
Carmen De Lavallade |
| Height |
|
| Naionality |
American |
| Date of Birth |
6-March-1931 |
| Place of Birth |
Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
| Famous for |
Acting |
Carmen De Lavallade is a dancer, choreographer, professor and stage and film actress. De Lavallade became a member of the Lester Horton Dance Theater in 1949 where she danced as a lead dancer until her departure for New York City with Alvin Ailey in 1954. De Lavallade, like all of Horton's students, studied other art forms, including painting, acting, music, set design and costuming, as well as ballet and other forms of modern and ethnic dance. She studied dancing with ballerina Carmelita Maracci and acting with Stella Adler. In 1954, De Lavallade made her Broadway debut partnered with Alvin Ailey in Truman Capote's House of Flowers.
In 1955, she married dancer and actor Geoffrey Holder, whom she had met while working on House of Flowers. It was with Holder that De Lavallade choreographed her signature solo Come Sunday, to a black spiritual sung by Odetta Gordon. The following year, De Lavallade danced as the prima ballerina in Samson and Delilah, and Aida at the Metropolitan Opera. She also made her television debut in John Butler's ballet Flight, and in 1957 she appeared in the television production of Duke Ellington's A Drum Is a Woman. De Lavallade also appeared in several off-Broadway productions, including Othello and Death of a Salesman. An introduction to Twentieth Century Fox executives by Lena Horne led to more acting roles between 1952 and 1955. She appeared in several films including Carmen Jones (1954) with Dorothy Dandridge and Odds Against Tomorrow (1959) with Harry Belafonte.
