Roxie Roker

**Roxie Roker** (born **Roxie Albertha Roker**, August 28, 1929-Decemeber 2, 1995) was an African-American Actress. She was best known to TV audiences as upstairs neighbor Helen Willis on the CBS sitcom *The Jeffersons*, half of the first interracial couple to be shown on regular prime time television. She once appeared as a celebrity guest on *The (New) $25,000 Pyramid* in the early 1980s.

## Early Life & Career

Roxie Roker was born in Miami, Florida but raised in Brooklyn, New York. Her mother, Bessie (Mitchell), was African-American, from Georgia, and her father, Albert Hubert Roker, was an Afro-Bahamian emigrant, originally from Nassau.

Roxie received her BFA from Howard University and was an active member in the Howard Players. She later became a member of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York. Roker also was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc and studied at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon, England.

She began her professional career with the Negro Ensemble Company and became a successful stage actress. In 1974, she won an Obie Award and was nominated for a Tony Award for her portrayal of Mattie Williams in *The River Niger*. Roxie was also a reporter on WNEW-TV in New York in the 1970s and hosted a public affairs show for the station known as *Inside Bed-Stuy*, dealing with events & surroundings in the neighborhood of Brooklyn.

## *The Jeffersons*: her notable TV role & Character Description

In 1975, Roker landed the role that become her best known role to TV audiences: upstairs neighbor Helen Willis on the CBS sitcom *The Jeffersons* which debuted on January 18, 1975. Roker and white actor Franklin Cover, who played her husband, Tom Willis, on the series, broke barriers by becoming the first Caucasian-African-American married couple on prime-time TV but it wasn't an easy road. Tom & Helen Willis have been married for over 20 years, they have two childen: daughter Jenny (played by Berlinda Tolbert) and son Allan (first played by Andrew Rubin & then Jay Hammer) and they reside in an upstairs apartment in a high-rise complex. Downstairs are their neighbors, Louise and George Jefferson (played by Isabel Sanford and Sherman Hemsley). They are best friends with Louise but arch-enemies with George, who often made cracks and personal jabs about their interracial marriage but overtime, George's attitude towards their marriage slowly but surely softened up and eventually became great friends (and eventually family).

On the series premiere episode titled "A Friend in Need", on one scene, some TV viewers became enraged after seeing Roker & Cover engaged in a kiss and some of the responses were quite ugly. In an interview, Franklin Cover admitted that he once received a photo of himself with his *Jeffersons* co-stars (Roker, Sherman Hemsley, and Isabel Sanford) with his face being blacked out which he took as a compliment. *The Jeffersons* ran for eleven seasons on CBS as it was abruptly cancelled by the network on July 2, 1985, causing massive controversy.

Sherman Hemsley said in an interview that he learned of the show's cancellation by reading it in the newspaper while Isabel Sanford said she learned of the cancellation through a family member who read about in the tabloids and had publicly stated that she found the cancellation with no proper finale to be disrespectful on the network's part.

## Other TV roles, Game Show Appearances

After the abrupt cancellation of *The Jeffersons*, Roxie went to appear in guest starring roles on a various number of television shows including *227* (reuniting her with her *Jeffersons* co-star Marla Gibbs), *Punky Brewster*, *A Different World*, and *Murder She Wrote*. She also appeared in the 1974 movie *Claudine* and had a role in the television miniseries *Roots*. Roker also spend a little bit of time on the game show circuit, she appeared as celebrity guest on the game shows *Beat the Clock*, *The (New) $25,000 Pyramid*, and *The Match Game/Hollywood Squares Hour*.

## Personal Life & Family

Roker was previously married to associate TV producer Sy Kravitz, they married in 1962 and divorced in 1985. When she auditioned for her role of Helen Willis on *The Jeffersons*, she was told by the producers that they weren't sure she looked believable as a African-American woman married to a white man. In a response to this, she showed them a family picture with her husband, Sy, who was white and as a result, she was immediately cast.

During their marriage, they had one child, actor and singer-songwriter Lenny Kravitz (born on May 26, 1964). Roxie is also the paternal grandmother of actress Zoe Kravitz (daughter of Lenny and *Cosby Show* alum Lisa Bonet) and cousin of NBC's *Today Show'*s Al Roker.

## Death

On December 2, 1995, Roxie passed away due to breast cancer, at the age of 66. She was also a children’s advocate who was cited by the city of Los Angeles for her community work.