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In the 1960s, Della Reese was a breakout star—she was incredibly popular singer, actress, and model, and became the first black woman in history to host her own talk show. Although the talk show aired almost 200 episodes in one year, almost none of the footage exists today.
Reese was actually born Delloreese Patricia Early in Detroit, Michigan to her father, an African American steelworker, and her mother, a Native American who worked as a cook. Although Reese's mother had several other children, they didn't live with the family and Reese was raised like an only child. Every weekend, she and her mother would go to the movies, and Reese would watch actresses like Joan Crawford and Bette Davis on the big screen before coming home to act out their parts. From a young age, Reese was interested in show business, and got her big break around the time of her mother's death in 1949.
Reese had started singing in a church gospel group at just six years old, and by the time Mahalia Jackson discovered her at age 13, she was a breakout star. Reese originally toured as a gospel artist, but she quickly transitioned into Jazz and R&B. In 1953, she signed a recording contract with Jubilee Records, and put out several hit singles that thrusted her into the public sphere. However, her singing career was just the start of what was to come—over the following years, Reese would also make a name for herself as a model, actress, and eventually, the first black female talk show host.
Reese's first foray into acting came at a time when black women were just starting to become stars on hit television shows. In the early 1960s, Cicely Tyson starred in "East Side, West Side,"Nichelle Nichols appeared in "Star Trek," and by the late 1960s, Diahann Carroll was starring in "Julia"—and Reese decided to jump into acting when she noticed the shift in the industry.
While the talk show was on the air, Reese welcomed guests like Marvin Gaye, Linda Ronstadt, Gladys Knight, Soupy Sales, Jacqueline Susann, and Muhammad Ali. The entire show was filmed in Los Angeles, and it was a hit from the start. In this article from Atlas Obscura, Reese is described as an "engaging, charismatic conversationalist and a mellifluous singer." On the show, Reese had a Jewish-American co-host, Sandy Baron, and each show featured two or three highly famous guests. The program was even a showcase for new talent, like a then unknown Steve Martin.
The show aired for one year, and in that time RKO released 200 episodes that featured everything from singing to animal segments, just like modern talk shows. Initially, the network believed that the show would perform best in liberal coastal states, but the show ended up attracting the most viewers in Alabama, Georgia, and Mississippi. For a moment, it seemed as though Reese was taking the world by storm, but it all came to an end when one network representative decided to pull the plug.
In an interview with the Archive of American Television in 2008, Reese stated, "The man who was selling our show said he couldn't sell our show because my gums were black. That was his rationale—that my gums were not pink. Every time I smiled, I turned people off." The sudden end to the successful television show was quite mysterious, especially considering the fact that no full-length footage of the show exists today. Since a resurgence of recognition of Reese's legacy came about, Warner has been accused of deeming the footage less valuable due to the host's race, but some claim that almost all footage from the era was lost because of negligence.
Reese's role in "Touched By An Angel" defined her career, perhaps overshadowing the fact that she had already accomplished so much as an African-American talk show host. Throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, she continued to appear in movies, including "Harlem Nights" with Eddie Murphy and "Barber Shop" with Queen Latifah. Reese's last on-screen performance was in 2014, and she currently has devoted her life to her Christian New Thought Church in Inglewood, California. Although most of the footage from her show was lost, select clips can be viewed through
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