Wonderful World of Color

"Literate, funny, warm and tender" was Producer Hal Kanter's unblushing preseason review of his new NBC show Julia, the first TV series to focus on a Negro family. "Julia will be an opportunity to show the world how black people live," chimed in Diahann Carroll, late of Broadway (No Strings) and Hollywood (Hurry Sundown), who plays the title role.

Now eleven episodes old, Julia unfortunately shows no such thing. It is trite, sugary and preposterous. Take one recent show. When a kid says "Hello, there" to Julia's bright six-year-old son Corey (Marc Copage), he pipes: "Hello, where?" Squeals Corey's teen-age baby sitter: "You've got the wildest mind since they wrapped Ezra Pound in a wet sheet!" Later, a white neighbor lady in Julia's high-priced integrated apartment building pops in to exclaim: "This is the most exciting thing that's happened around here since the cat had kit tens in the washing machine!"

Up the Scale to No. 6. As for that intimate, inside look at the life and times of black people, Julia seems more like The Wonderful World of Color. In one episode, when a character conveniently named Potts makes a slighting reference about Negroes, Julia delivers her big punch line: "Is Potts calling the black a kettle?" Producer Kanter promises more of this hard-hitting social commentary in forthcoming shows. "In one program," says Kanter, "there's a Negro male who's a failure and blames it all on his being colored. We straighten him out. In another, Corey is called 'nigger,' and the conflict is whether he should beat up the other kid or not."

Larger interracial issues are ignored. Asked if Julia will ever be involved with a white man, Diahann says: "I don't think that's of primary importance. There's a great deal of sensationalism in that now, while the interaction of the black man and the black woman has not been explored at all and needs to be." In the meantime, the series will, as in the Dec. 24 episode, wallow in lesser issues like Corey's argument with a neighbor boy about whether or not Santa Claus is white. Title of the segment: "I'm Dreaming of a Black Christmas."

Clearly, the producers of Julia are following the old nostrum: "If you can't lick the problem, sweeten it to death." By the standards of TV, this sort of treatment works; Julia is currently ranked No. 6 in the Nielsen ratings. Analyzing those numbers, NBC statisticians report that Julia attracts an "upscale" audience --more urban, wealthier and better educated than the average. There are no indications of either a boycott by Southern whites or heavier tune-in among blacks. Predictably, though, Negro militants are outraged. And, to be sure, Julia is rarely confronted with the tough problems of being born black. She would not recognize a ghetto if she stumbled into it, and she is, in every respect save color, a figure in a white milieu.

Long Overdue Pjus. Diahann's reaction to such criticism comes with claws. In her office-suite and dressing-room trailer on the 20th Century-Fox lot, she told a TIME reporter: "I felt even before the show went on the air that there would be some impact, just from the fact that black people are on TV, in a setting of banality or not." Her anger rose: "Why are we singled out as a TV show? The fact that the show went on the air at all is a plus, and a plus long overdue. Somebody decided, 'Let's have a black lady starring on TV in 1968'--in 1968. Why not attack that"? That it took so long? Isn't that an outrage?" Her eyes flashed behind huge yellow-tinted glasses as she continued the attack. "The plusses for Julia are so obvious that they almost don't bear discussion. Those who are liberal--who already have Negro friends--are in the minority. TV reaches the whole country, offering everybody con stant contact with this woman and her child."

The show is undeniably lightweight entertainment; yet Diahann suggests that too many critics mistakenly judge the program as a documentary or social tract rather than for what it is--a situation comedy that is about as true to life as other TV series. The racial aspect of Julia is only incidental, Producer Kanter explains. "To me, the news is that a Negro family is featured, and they're not choppin' cotton and they're not on relief, but they're part of what some people consider the mainstream of American life."

The daughter of a subway conductor, Diahann has made a .life for herself that is considerably better than the mainstream. She rents a handsome three-bedroom furnished house in Beverly Hills; it came complete with gardens, swimming pool and a grey Bentley. That is in keeping with Diahann's tastes. She was furious at the furnishings that she found in her dressing room and ordered her secretary to get rid of all of them immediately. "Their idea of decorating!" she exclaimed when she first saw an armchair covered in a floral pattern of ochre, pink and purple. "Somebody puked here, and somebody puked here," she continued, pointing disgustedly at other offensive points of decor. "And here, and here!"

The Good, Selfish Life. Diahann's clothes are by Donald Brooks and Scaasi. In restaurants she asks the wine stew ard for Lafite-Rothschild '55, or if that is too expensive, the '62. Her friends include Actor James Garner and his wife Lois; Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee, who is now also in the TV series game with Peyton Place; and Singer Nancy Wilson. She is hooked on discotheques. When back home in Manhattan (she still maintains a West Side apartment), she prefers the "in" spot, the Salvation; on the Coast, she cased Club John and the Daisy and joined the Factory. But since ponying up the $1,000 membership fee, she has been there only once--what with all those 18-hour grinds on the set.

Some weeks, her social life consists of little more than Sunday brunch at the Polo Lounge of the Beverly Hills Hotel or a quick Chinese meal with eight-year-old daughter Suzanne. Diahann was divorced in 1962 from Monte Kaye, a white show-biz talent manager in New York. Her subsequent romance with Sidney Poitier is now over, and she has lately been seen with Don Marshall, the Negro copilot of ABC's The Land of the Giants. Diahann discounts any marital speculation. "I have never lived this selfish a life before," she says, "meaning that I've never lived so much for me, my work and my family. People could say to me, 'Diahann, why aren't you working all day for the N.A.A.C.P. or for S.N.C.C.?' The answer is that this show is what I am capable of. I am capable in this field."

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