Rise to Fame
At 13, she toured with Mahalia Jackson. By 18, she was performing gospel in Las Vegas casinos, the first to bring it there, at a time when mixing sacred music with gambling dens was a genuine controversy. The commercial breakthrough came in 1959 with 'Don't You Know?', a Puccini adaptation that hit #2 on the Pop charts and sold over a million copies. She'd already spent years on The Ed Sullivan Show by then. The pop hit was almost an accident. Television was where she stayed.
In the Spotlight
Most people know her as Tess from Touched by an Angel, the tough-love heavenly supervisor she played for nine seasons and 211 episodes. The show drew 25 million weekly viewers at its peak, but the production was never smooth. In 1997, she held a press conference calling out CBS for giving co-star Roma Downey a 100% pay raise while she got 12.5%. CBS reportedly raised her salary from $40,000 to $100,000 per episode. Before that, she'd broken barriers: first Black woman to host a national talk show in 1969, and first Black woman to guest-host The Tonight Show in 1970. The TV legacy runs deeper than the angel wings.
Side Notes
Playing an angel on television for nine seasons while running an actual church in Los Angeles wasn't a contradiction for her. She was ordained as a minister in 1986 and led Understanding Principles For Better Living in L.A. for decades. In 1979, she'd had a stroke on the set of The Tonight Show, fifteen years before Touched by an Angel even existed. Her birth name was Delloreese Patricia Early; she shortened it because 'Delloreese' was too big for a club marquee.
Final Chapter
Her husband Franklin Lett released the death statement through Roma Downey, who called her 'an incredible wife, mother, grandmother, friend, and pastor.' She was inducted into the Rhythm and Blues Hall of Fame that same year, 2017.