Lynn Hamilton, veteran actor and dignified foil to Redd Foxx on 'Sanford and Son,' dies at 95

Lynn Hamilton, an histrion who made her people connected “Sanford and Son” and “The Waltons” and appeared successful 132 episodes of “Generations,” the archetypal Black daytime drama, has died.

Hamilton died Thursday surrounded by her grandchildren, loved ones and caregivers, her erstwhile manager and publicist the Rev. Calvin Carlson said successful an announcement Sunday connected societal media.

“Her passing marks the extremity of an era,” Carlson wrote, “but her bequest volition proceed to animate and uplift aboriginal generations.”

Born Alzenia Lynn Hamilton connected April 25, 1930, successful Yazoo City, Miss., and raised from property 12 successful Chicago, she studied acting astatine the Goodman Theatre and aboriginal earned a bachelor of arts degree. She didn’t spot overmuch occurrence until she deed New York City, wherever she was successful shows connected Broadway and disconnected and did Shakespeare successful the Park. Hamilton was the archetypal formed subordinate onstage successful the 1959 accumulation of “Only successful America,” which featured a young Alan Alda astatine what is present the James Earl Jones Theatre.

By the clip the 1960s rolled around, she had joined the Seattle Repertory Theatre, wherever she met her husband, poet-playwright Frank Jenkins. They moved to Los Angeles successful 1968 and by 1972 she had landed the recurring relation of Donna Harris, histrion Redd Foxx’s caregiver woman and aboriginal his fiancée connected “Sanford and Son.” Makeup made her look older than she was, arsenic Foxx — who died successful 1991 — was 8 years her senior.

“I similar the show,” Hamilton said successful an October 1972 interview. “I deliberation what the satellite needs is to laughter much and to emotion much and ‘Sanford and Son’ helps. On Friday night, erstwhile the amusement is on, I tin perceive the laughter coming astatine the aforesaid clip from each the homes astir me.”

Hamilton told actor-singer-author Demetris Dennis Taylor, a.k.a. Big Meach (no narration to the Black Mafia Family founder), connected his online speech amusement “Dishing Tea” that she was chosen for the relation from astir “100 different actresses successful Hollywood” who auditioned. She said raunchy comedian Foxx was “impressed with my acquisition and helium ever said, ‘You’re truthful dignified’ and ‘I request idiosyncratic dignified other me.’

“He was alert of his, what, his earthiness, shall we say.”

Lynn Hamilton and her husband, writer Frank Jenkins, successful 2001.

(Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

On “The Waltons” she played Verdie Grant Foster, a quality whose grandparents had been enslaved. Hamilton told Big Meach that Verdie was a relation she was arrogant of due to the fact that “she proved that you tin amended yourself astatine immoderate clip successful your life. When we archetypal spot her ... she’s a successful, accomplished woman and parent and had a bully occupation and was good respected, but she couldn’t read. And of course, John-Boy [played by Richard Thomas] taught her however to read. “ Learning, Hamilton said, “opened up a full caller world” for the character.

The Verdie relation recurred implicit the 9 seasons the amusement ran.

Hamilton won an NAACP Image Award for her 1984 show successful the archetypal accumulation of Christine Houston’s play “227” astatine Marla Gibbs’ Crossroads Theater successful Los Angeles. She and Gibbs alternated successful the play’s pistillate pb role. In 1985, she was proclaimed fractional of the “most amusing twosome” successful Celeste Walker’s “Reunion successful Bartersville,” a play astir members of a Black, small-town Texas precocious school’s Class of 1933 who reunite 50 years down the line. Hamilton played nightclub proprietor Pollina, who brings on a 28-year-old spouse — the character’s 5th husband. “As a airy conveyance for older achromatic actors, [the play] runs similar a well-tuned sports car,” The Times said successful its review.

Hamilton helped rise wealth successful 1987 for skid row’s Midnight Mission, joining successful a payment show of Studs Terkel’s “Hard Times” astatine the Los Angeles Theatre Center. Her castmates were Tyne Daly, John Lithgow, Martin Sheen, Ned Beatty, Barry Bostwick, Nan Martin, Doris Roberts and — hold for it — Little Richard.

Husband and woman collaborated frequently, and arsenic the caller period began, Hamilton directed “Driving While Black successful Beverly Hills,” written by Jenkins. Set successful 1970, it addressed radical profiling: The occurrence and societal presumption of the play’s protagonist mean thing to the constabulary who people him and his companions due to the fact that of their tegument color.

Hamilton had urged her hubby to support reworking a play helium had started penning successful 1968 astir a wronged Black motorist. Fifteen drafts and 30 years later, that play became “Driving While Black.” They recovered a shaper successful 2000 aft a staged speechmaking of the show, and that shaper suggested Hamilton nonstop aft learning that she had suggested elements of the speechmaking that helium liked.

“Under Lynn Hamilton’s focused staging, the good formed makes the play’s earnest, often eloquent articulation of its issues affecting and persuasive,” The Times said successful its March 2001 reappraisal of the amusement astatine the intimate Matrix Theatre connected Melrose — though the professional besides noted that the play’s galore lengthy speeches undermined its melodramatic reality.

“Their concern was a shining illustration of creativity, love, and dedication,” manager Carlson wrote Sunday. They besides collaborated connected the plays “Nobody” and “The Bert Williams Story.”

Hamilton was inactive doing episodic TV into the 2000s, notching credits connected “NYPD Blue,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Cold Case” and much aft the crook of the century.

Her galore different acting gigs included roles successful “Dangerous Women,” “Roots: The Next Generation,” “A Dream for Christmas,” “The Jesse Owens Story,” “The Practice” and “Lady Sings the Blues.”

In an undated interrogation taped by her manager, she advised young performers to “first and foremost, get due training” successful dependable and diction.

“I’m amazed astatine the youngsters today. I can’t recognize what they’re saying,” she said. “Acting is simply a signifier of communication. You are trying to pass to your assemblage what it is the playwright has fixed you to portray. And if I can’t recognize what you are saying, past everything is lost.”