Esther Rolle (1920-1998) was a stage actress who gained fame as Florida in the sitcom Good Times, a spinoff of Norman Lear's Maude. Her television success was a little ironic - Florida was Maude's maid, then, on Good Times, she was the matriarch of a Chicago ghetto family - since she wasn't a big fan of the stereotypical roles given to black actors; when Jimmy Walker's "Dy-no-mite!" and other assorted JJ-isms (however cute, in small doses) became the engine of her success, it probably made it that much worse. She even quit the show briefly.

Other credits include the plays Don't Play Us Cheap and A Raisin in the Sun, the TV movie Summer of My German Soldier, for which she won an Emmy, and the films Driving Miss Daisy and Rosewood.

And she was, in fact, born in Florida - Pompano Beach.

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