Rosalid Cash (1939-1995)

flourished on stage, screen and television despite her staunch refusal to play stereotyped roles. Most recently known in the recurring role of matriarch Mary Mae Ward on the soap opera General Hospital, Ms. Cash was nominated for an Emmy for her work in the PBS production of Go Tell It on the Mountain. She was popular in other highly rated television productions, including King Lear and the miniseries The Guyana Tragedy: the Story of Jim Jones. She also guest- starred on popular series as Barney Miller, Police Story, Kojak, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, China Beach, Thirtysomething, Cagney & Lacey, and Hill Street Blues. Her memorable film roles included Lisa opposite Charlton Heston in The Omega Man, Sarah Jackson in the comedy Uptown Saturday Night with Bill Cosby and Joan Emdall in the cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai; Across the 8th Dimension. ms. Cash earned the Black American Cinema Society’s Phoenix Award for achievement in motion pictures in 1987 and was inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame in 1992. Born in Atlantic City, she moved to New York in her teens. She attended City College and became a founding member of the highly respected Negro Ensemble Company. Her career began with legitimate theater. She made her debut on Broadway in The Wayward Stork in 1966 and appeared in productions such as Fiorello!, Ceremonies in Dark Old Men, and Boesman and Lena. In London, she performed in The Class of Miss MacMichael. When acting roles were sparse, Ms. Cash supported herself as a secretary, waitress, keypunch operator and a jazz club singer. "Maybe I’ve handled it all wrong, but I’ve gotten out of it what I wanted to get out of it," she said in discussing her career. "That’s a sense of being true to myself. I came to a point where I said I know there are things I am not going to do for money. I’m not good at playing stereotypes. I don’t ingratiate myself to the powers-that-be as some nice, Negro, colored, abiding person. You cannot depend on me to be that Negro that you have come to know and love, that you’re used to, "she said. A woman of many interests, the actress wrote poetry, painted, played guitar, cooked, sewed and gardened. (LA Times Obituaries)

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