- Born
- Died
- Birth nameEthyl Spraggins Ayler
- 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.
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