Biography

Ethel Ayler was born on May 1, 1930 in Whistler, Alabama, USA. She was an actress, known for The Bodyguard (1992), 9½ Weeks (1986) and To Sleep with Anger (1990). She died on November 18, 2018 in Loma Linda, California, USA.

She attended Fisk University, majoring in voice and learning to sing in French, Spanish, Italian and German. She moved to Chicago for a singing career, and got into acting when she won a role in a touring company of Porgy and Bess.

A longtime member of the Negro Ensemble Company, she starred in the 1960s in Jean Genet's long-running off-Broadway play The Blacks: A Clown Show in a cast that included Maya Angelou, James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge and Louis Gossett Jr.