Diana Sands

Diana Sands was born Diana Patricia Sands on August 22, 1934 in the Bronx, New York City, the daughter of Rudolph Sands, a Bahamian carpenter, and Shirley Thomas, a milliner. She grew up as one of three children and attended elementary school in Elmsford before enrolling in the prestigious Music & Art High School in 1949, where she shared classrooms with future stars Diahann Carroll and Billy Dee Williams. While still a student she earned her first stage role in George Bernard Shaw’s Major Barbara, and after graduating in 1953 she began a professional career as a dancer, touring with a traveling carnival. Sands’ break came in 1959 when she was cast as Beneatha Younger in the Broadway debut of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, a role she would reprise in the 1961 film adaptation alongside Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil and Ruby Dee, cementing her reputation as a powerful dramatic actress. Over the next decade she became a member of the Actors Studio, earned two Tony nominations for her work in The Owl and the Pussycat and James Baldwin’s Blues for Mister Charlie, and appeared in popular television series such as The Outer Limits, I Spy, The Fugitive and Julia. Her film work included An Affair of the Skin (1963), The Landlord (1970), Georgia, Georgia (1972) and the blaxploitation title Willie Dynamite (1974). Despite a rising career, Sands’ life was tragically cut short by pancreatic leiomyosarcoma; she collapsed during filming of Claudine in 1973 and died on September 21, 1973 at the age of 39. She left no children, having been married once to Swiss artist Lucien Happersberger (1964‑1966) and later engaged to assistant director Kurt Baker. In recognition of her talent and impact on African‑American theatre, a Bronx junior high school was named in her honor in 1976.