Came from a family white mother, black father. I have my bachelor of science degree from the University of Michigan. I got that in speech and language. So, I’m a speech therapist and that’s mainly what I’ll be talking about.

 

I have two master’s degrees. My first masters was in Psychology. I do have problems with the memory now at my age. I have my second masters in guidance and counseling. I was going to get a PHD at the University of Michigan, but I won the Miss Michigan Universe contest. I was one of the first Black girls to do that. That was in 1967.

 

So in 1968, your president, Donald Trump at that time had asked me to come work for him. And I was like, “hmmm I don’t want to go work for him.” I didn’t want to tell him that though because he called me every week for one year until I made my decision. But I came out here (LA) instead of going to New York to work for him.

 

So, when I got out here since I was one of the first blacks to win a big contest, I had backing. People knew of me if they didn’t know me with the publicity at that time. I was able to get an agent. I had two agents before I got to William Morris agency. They got me television, I did over 30 or 40 television commercials. I did several movies, one with the Sweet Back situation. I been on three television series regularly. The first one was Lohman and Barkley. I came up during the 60s and 70s era, and it was a comedy. The second one was the DA. I co-starred with Robert Conrad. The last series I was in, was emergency. I was a nurse at the desk. I played them out until the series ran out.

 

What happened, I didn’t invest my money. And I’m telling every young person who makes any type of money, is invest it into something. That gets away from you when you’re giving people things and you’re living big.