Diahann rides into our Sunset
By JOHN COULBOURN
Toronto Sun

After months of speculation, Diahann Carroll has been signed to play Norma Desmond in the Toronto production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Sunset Boulevard, opening Oct. 15 at the Ford Centre.
Carroll's casting was announced yesterday by LiveEnt chairman Garth Drabinsky, co-producing the show with Webber's Really Useful Theatre Company.
A gifted performer, Carroll's career has spanned the entertainment spectrum, from night-clubs through Broadway (in Richard Rodgers' No Strings, which previewed at the O'Keefe Centre in 1962) to movies (from 1974's Claudine to 1993's The Five Heartbeats), and TV (where she was the first black actress to star in her own NBC series, titled Julia).
In addition to the Tony she earned for No Strings, Carroll's been nominated for an Oscar, an Emmy and a Grammy.
Speaking from Montreal yesterday, Drabinsky was ecstatic:
"I'm obviously thrilled."
Carroll first auditioned for the role as a replacement for Glenn Close in the Los Angeles production of the show, he said, and she was, in terms of the Toronto production, "always very much on the list from the very beginning."
The producer concedes that one of the things that landed Carroll the role was her star quality: "Her performance on Dynasty alone gives her an unbelievable entertainment following," he said. But there were other, more compelling reasons for the choice.
"One has to look for a lot of things and one of them is commitment to the show," he said, adding that with $300,000 worth of costumes, re-casting can be expensive.
But finally, Drabinsky says, it was the 50-something Carroll's talent and her experience that won the day.
"Her voice is still so sultry and full of the history of her life," he enthused. "She has great singing capacity. She's had it all. The history of showbusiness is all in her gut."