Singer and actress Della Reese, born Delloreese Patricia Early, 86, died last night. She is best remembered today for having a long acting career culminating in the hit series Touched By an Angel, a show my mother absolutely hated. Reese was also an ordained minister.
She appeared in a few films, but she is best known for her television work.
Reese was married four times, leaving the last husband a widower. She had a daughter, but she died in 2002. Reese also battled diabetes.
Snip:
But she became best known as an actress, particularly in the sentimental drama series “Touched by an Angel,” which had its premiere in 1994 and evolved into one of prime time’s top-rated shows. It placed in the Nielsen Top 10 from 1996 to 2000, with an average of more than 20 million weekly viewers at one point.
In the show, Ms. Reese, by then in her 60s, was cast as Tess, a stern but loving supervisor of angels who guided a softhearted and less experienced angel, Monica (Roma Downey), in helping humans at crossroads in their lives. The series told reassuring stories of forgiveness and second chances with mild irreverence. (“You get your little angel butt back to the city,” Tess told Monica in one episode.)
Ms. Reese contended that no career switch was involved. “Every time I sang the blues, I wasn’t blue,” she said in a 2008 interview for the Archive of American Television, alluding to her emotional connections and delivery as a vocalist. “I was already acting.”
No comments:
Post a Comment