Diahann Carroll (born July 17, 1935) is an American actress and songstress.

Carroll was born Carol Diahann Johnson in The Bronx, New York, to John Johnson and Mabel Faulk. Her family moved to the Washington Heights neighborhood of New York City when she was an infant. She attended Music & Art High School, along with schoolmate Billy Dee Williams.

Carroll's first film assignment was a supporting role in Carmen Jones in 1954, playing a friend of the sultry Carmen, played by Dorothy Dandridge. She then starred in the Broadway musical House of Flowers. In 1959, she played Clara in the film version of Gershwin's Porgy and Bess along with Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., and Pearl Bailey. All singing voices were dubbed in the film, with the exception of Pearl Bailey, with opera singer Loulie Jean Norman standing in for Carroll. In 1962 she won the Tony Award for best actress (a first for a black woman) for the role of Barbara Woodruff in the Samuel A. Taylor and Richard Rodgers musical No Strings. In 1974 she was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actress for Claudine.