People, Locations, Episodes

Mon, 01.10.1949

Teresa Graves, Television Actress born

*Teresa Graves, a Black singer and actress, was born on this date in 1949.

She was born in Houston, TX. She started her career as a singer with the Doodletown Pipers. Later, she turned to acting full-time. Graves’ first big television appearance was on Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In program in 1969 and 1970. She also appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and several Bob Hope television specials in 1970 and 1971; she had a feature role in "The Funny Side," a television series in 1971 and 1972.

She was in several movies in the mid-1970s, including "That Man Bolt," "Black Eye," and "Old Dracula." Perhaps Graves’s most significant small screen part was starring as a lively undercover cop in the television police drama "Get Christie Love" in 1974-75. In "Get Christie Love," she played the first Black woman hired by a big-city police department. Her final show business appearance was in a Bob Hope special in 1982.

Graves then left acting to concentrate on her involvement with the Jehovah's Witnesses. Teresa Graves died in a fire at her Hyde Park (Los Angeles) home on October 11, 2002.

To become an Actor or Actress