Eliza "Virginia" Capers (September 22, 1925 – May 6, 2004) was a Tony Award Winning American actress and singer who appeared in Season 3's Mork in Never Neverland as Nurse Tula .
Biography[]
Born Eliza Virginia Capers on September 22, 1925, in South Carolina, Virginia Capers attended Howard University in Washington, D.C., before studying voice at Juilliard in Manhattan.
She and her son Glenn once took in an Inuit runaway named Nilak Butler and eventually helped her secure a five-year contract with Warner Brothers as an actress. Nilak later became a prominent voice in the American Indian Movement.
Unmarried, Ms Capers died due complications from pneumonia on May 6, 2004. She was 78 and survived by her son, Glenn and her brother.
Career[]
She began her career on the Yiddish stage in 1950. By happenstance, Virginia was introduced to band leader Abe Lyman who hired her for his radio program and for on-the-road tours. In the late 50s, She made her Broadway debut in the musical Jamaica in 1957. Playing older than she was, the 34-year-old took over for Adelaide Hall in the role of Grandma Obeah, when Hall left the musical. Capers went on to appear in Saratoga (1959) albeit in chorus/understudy role. Back on the stage in the 70's, she won the Tony Award for Best Lead Actress in a Musical in 1974 for her performance as Lena Younger in Raisin, a musical version of Lorraine Hansberry's play A Raisin in the Sun, going on later to perform the part later in a straight dramatic version.
Moving from New York to Hollywood in the early 60s she made her screen debut in "Have Gun, Will Travel" (1961), before going on to further appearances in shows like "General Electric Theatre," "The Untouchables," "Daniel Boone," "Death Valley Days," "Judd for the Defense," "My Three Sons," "Marcus Welby," "Bracken's World," "Longstreet," "The Rookies," "Mannix" and a recurring role on Julia (1968). Into the 70s, 80s and 90s she appeared in The Waltons, Highway to Heaven, St. Elsewhere, Dynasty, Murder, She Wrote, Knots Landing, Evening Shade, The Golden Girls, Unsub, Booker, Married... with Children, The Practice and ER, and had recurring roles in, Downtown (86-86), Frank's Place (87-88) on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as Hattie Banks (90-95).
Her movie work included roles in House of Women (1962), The Ride to Hangman's Tree (1967), The Lost Man (1969), Norwood (1970), The Great White Hope (1970), Big Jake (1971), Trouble Man (1972) and as Billie Holiday's mother in Lady Sings the Blues (1972) starring Diana Ross . The North Avenue Irregulars (1979), The Toy (1982), Teachers (1984), Howard the Duck (1986), Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), Beethoven's 2nd (1993) and What's Love Got to Do with It (1993).
Om addition to her on screen work in LA, Virginia went on to found in 1984 the Lafayette Players West, a performing arts repertory troupe that provided stage work for (primarily) black actors. She also received the National Black Theatre Festival Living Legend Award, the Paul Robeson Pioneer Award and the NAACP's Image Award for theatre excellence. At the time of her death, Virginia was in rehearsal for a tribute to Oscar-nominated character actress Juanita Moore.
Mork & Mindy[]
Virginia appeared in Season 3's Mork in Never Neverland playing the kindly psychiatric nurse, Nurse Tula who worked in the Happy Valley Sanitorium looking after Mork's pen pal Peter Panovski (who imagined himself to be Peter Pan) and his fellow inmates.