Della Reese

Renowned across television and stages for her commanding interpretations of jazz, blues, R&B, gospel, and mainstream pop, Della Reese built an expansive and celebrated career in entertainment. She earned Emmy and Grammy nominations, received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and was ordained as a minister within the Universal Foundation for Better Living, the network of churches she helped establish in the early 1980s.

Deloreese Patricia Early entered the world on July 6, 1931, in Detroit and first sang publicly at age six as part of her local Baptist church choir. By 1945 her voice had matured enough to attract gospel legend Mahalia Jackson, who recruited her for summer tours that continued over the next five years. While studying psychology at Wayne State University, Reese assembled the all-female gospel ensemble the Meditation Singers, yet family hardship soon intervened when her mother died and her father fell gravely ill.

To support her relatives she took on assorted jobs while still performing with the Meditation Singers and additional gospel outfits. At her pastor’s urging she began nightclub appearances in search of a secular breakthrough; after marrying factory worker Vermont Adolphus Bon Taliaferro she shortened her given name to fit marquees and adopted “Della Reese” as her stage identity. An impressed New York agent signed her, prompting a move to the city and a 1953 engagement with the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra. Jubilee Records offered a contract the following year, yielding the 1957 million-selling single “And That Reminds Me.”

At RCA Victor she scored her signature success in 1959 with “Don’t You Know?,” an adaptation drawn from Puccini’s La Bohème. The hit opened doors to frequent variety-show bookings, nationwide nightclub engagements, and a nine-year Las Vegas residency, along with recording deals at multiple labels over subsequent decades.

Leveraging her variety-show credentials, Reese made television history in 1969 as the first woman to guest-host The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Later that year she became the first Black woman to front her own syndicated variety program, Della, which aired through 1970. After its conclusion she resumed nightclub work and made guest appearances on series such as The Mod Squad, Sanford and Son, and Chico and the Man. In 1978 she married producer Franklin Lett, establishing a lasting partnership following three earlier marriages.

While recording a song for The Tonight Show on October 3, 1980, Reese suffered a brain aneurysm that required emergency surgery, yet she recovered completely. She maintained her recording and performance schedule while appearing on Designing Women, L.A. Law, and Picket Fences, and took supporting roles in the Eddie Murphy features Harlem Nights and The Distinguished Gentleman. From 1991 to 1992 she co-starred in the Redd Foxx sitcom The Royal Family, then achieved her widest recognition in the long-running inspirational series Touched by an Angel, which aired on CBS from 1994 to 2003. After that program ended she continued occasional television roles until 2014. Reese passed away at her Encino, California, residence in November 2017 at the age of 86.