Diana Sands

Sands, Diana (1934–73), actress. She was an attractive, stylish African‐American player who managed in her short life to break barriers, playing classical roles usually denied blacks and getting cast in contemporary roles written for white women. A native New Yorker, she was educated at the Performing Arts High School and trained at the Herbert Berghof Studio. Sands made an impressive Broadway debut in 1959 as the radical daughter Beneatha in the original A Raisin in the Sun. She was lauded for her bereaved Juanita in Blues for Mister Charlie (1964), then made Broadway history by being cast as the call girl Doris in The Owl and Pussycat (1964), a role written with no indication of race. Sands's other noteworthy performances include a vibrant Saint Joan (1968) at Lincoln Center, the wacky Red Cross worker Ruth in We Bombed in New Haven (1968), and the outspoken New Yorker Gloria in The Gingham Dog (1969).