It would be on television, though, and not the big screen, that a Black woman would be first allowed to be as nasty as her white counterpart and benefit from it. Circling back to Dynasty, alongside Alexis, her archnemesis Dominique Deveraux and the actress who plays her, Diahann Carroll, are incredibly important. In a filmed interview from 1984, Carroll declared in no uncertain terms: “I want to be the first Black bitch on television.” Carroll called her manager and got them to “get the word around and call Aaron Spelling” to ensure her casting.
