‘Strange Fruit’ play actress Carter dies

NEW YORK — Dorothy Carter, a former stage actress who starred in the adaptation of the groundbreaking novel “Strange Fruit” on Broadway and later became an educator and a children’s book author, has died after battling bladder cancer. She was 94.

She died Sept. 14 in New York, family friend Mary Zaslofsky said Friday.

Carter, born in 1918 in Kissimee, Fla., studied drama at Spelman College and later was taught by Stella Adler in New York.

She made her Broadway debut in 1945 in Lillian Smith’s adaptation of her novel “Strange Fruit,” an interracial love story.

The show, directed by Jose Ferrer and starring Jane White and Earl Jones, closed after 60 performances but got a positive write-up by then-first lady Eleanor Roosevelt in her syndicated column.