Film & TV / Literature / Civil rights & activism
Denise Nicholas
born 1944 · actress, writer
Room 222's Liz McIntyre and In the Heat of the Night's Harriet DeLong, born in Detroit, raised there and in Milan, Michigan, who left the University of Michigan to join the civil rights theater movement.
- Born
Detroit, Michigan
age 82- Birth name
- Denise Donna Nicholas
- Detroit years
- 1944–early 1960s
01 / The Detroit story
The Detroit story
Denise Nicholas was born in Detroit in 1944 and spent her early years in the city; after her mother remarried she moved to Milan, a small town south of Ann Arbor. At sixteen she appeared on the cover of Jet magazine as a promising future teacher. She entered the University of Michigan as a pre-law student but left, and later dropped out of Tulane as well, to join the Free Southern Theater, touring the Deep South for two years during the civil rights movement. In New York she became a member of the newly founded Negro Ensemble Company. Her television breakthrough was the guidance counselor Liz McIntyre on ABC's Room 222 (1969–1974), which brought three straight Golden Globe nominations; she also appeared in Blacula and Let's Do It Again. From 1989 she played Councilwoman Harriet DeLong on In the Heat of the Night and wrote episodes of the series. She later published the novel Freshwater Road (2005), set during Mississippi's Freedom Summer.
Highlights
- Liz McIntyre in Room 222 (1969–1974); three Golden Globe nominations
- Harriet DeLong in In the Heat of the Night; also wrote episodes
- Toured the South with the Free Southern Theater during the civil rights movement
- Novel Freshwater Road (2005)
02 / Their Detroit places
Their Detroit places 1
Where they lived, worked, performed and liked to hang out. Closed and demolished places stay here too, because they are part of the city's history.
Studied here · early 1960s
University of Michigan
Nicholas entered the university as a pre-law student before leaving for the civil rights theater movement.