Addy became a regular cast member one year later. Meanwhile, Joey Donovan ( Joey Lawrence) was a six-year-old orphan who joined the Kanisky household that year. Although they were friends, Nell and Addy would be somewhat competitive at times too. The third season saw occasional appearances of Adelaide "Addy" Wilson ( Telma Hopkins), Nell's childhood friend who worked as a teacher. Other episodes had him as a neighbor, who always complained about noise, and he was often referred to as "that jerk, Swackhammer!" however after five episodes, Swackhammer disappeared with no explanation whatsoever. However, the phone company snafu was eventually fixed up, and the arrogant Swackhammer was demoted. The aforementioned Swackhammer (but was incorrectly called jackhammer) was at first the assistant manager of the local phone company in Glenlawn, who angered Nell and called her by the wrong surname, not to mention turned off phone service to the Kanisky household, and having Nell arrested and thrown in jail. Ed got married and was written out of the series.ĭuring the 1982-1983 season, the family also contended with a man who would often annoy the Kanisky household, who was only known by his surname of "Swackhammer" (played by actor Jack Fletcher). Grandma, however, died after that season, and Grandpa moved in with Carl and his family. During the second season, Carl's parents, Grandpa Stanley ( John Hoyt) and Grandma Mildred (Jane Dulo), were occasionally seen, as was his brother, Ed (Pete Schrum), an overweight mortician who loved to play practical jokes. Officer Ralph Simpson ( Howard Morton) was a dopey police officer who worked with Carl. Nell also served as a confidante to the chief's three daughters, 17-year-old Katie ( Kari Michaelsen), 15-year-old Julie ( Lauri Hendler), and 13-year-old Samantha ( Lara Jill Miller). Nellie Ruth "Nell" Harper ( Nell Carter) agrees to be a housekeeper for the Kanisky household as a special favor to her late friend, Margaret Kanisky, who was the wife of police chief Carl Kanisky ( Dolph Sweet). The sitcom took place in the fictional Los Angeles suburb of Glenlawn, California. It starred Nell Carter as the housekeeper for a police chief and his three daughters, whose mother had died. "Gimme a Break!" is an American sitcom which aired on NBC from Octountil May 12, 1987.
" Later she sang in local coffeehouses.Caption = "Gimme a Break!" title screen used during the first and second seasons. As a child, she sang on the gospel circuit and performed on a weekly radio show, "The Y Teens. King, along with her brother's Elvis Presley records. While growing up, she absorbed her mother's recordings of Dinah Washington and B.B. Nell Carter was born Nell Hardy in Birmingham, Ala., on Sept. She last appeared in San Francisco in early 2001 in "The Vagina Monologues, " about which Chronicle theater critic Steven Winn wrote that her "tremulous line readings play all the way to the back of the balcony." The show, which ran from 1981 to 1987, earned her two Emmy nominations and revived the archetype of the mammy, an African American woman caring for a white family. Her biggest success after "Ain't Misbehavin' " was the successful sitcom "Gimme a Break!," in which she played Nellie Ruth "Nell" Harper, the housekeeper and surrogate mother for a widowed California police chief and his three children. Carter made such an indelible impression as a shimmying, bawdy old-time vaudevillian in "Ain't Misbehavin' " that after its success she found herself often typecast as a rollicking good-time mama. Three years later, she won an Emmy Award for the NBC television production of the same show. That show, a potpourri of Fats Waller songs, opened at the Manhattan Theater Club in New York in February 1978, and moved to the Longacre Theater on Broadway three months later, where it ran for more than 1,600 performances and won Carter a Tony Award for best featured actress in a musical. The warmth and feeling for comedy that inflected her interpretations of even the saddest songs reflected Carter's desire to be what she called " Judy Garland without the tragedy."įor many who saw them, Carter's performances of such songs as "Keepin' Out of Mischief Now" and the title song of "Ain't Misbehavin' " were legendary.
Her vocal style was descended from the humorous gutbucket blues of Bessie Smith by way of Dinah Washington, whose singing also conveyed a seam of earthy amusement. A typical performance by Carter reached into the fabric of a song and tore out its seams with feral flourishes.Īs a singer and stage personality, Carter was also a natural comedian.
Along with Patti La Belle and Jennifer Holliday, she belonged to a select circle of theatrical pop-soul belters whose members reveled in high-powered vocal flamboyance. Although she stood only 4 foot 11, she was a larger-than-life stage personality who never did things in half-measures.
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