Teresa Graves was born on January 10, 1948 in Houston, Texas to Marshall “Mannie” Graves and wife Willie Patterson Graves. Her father was a laborer and her mother was a housewife. Teresa had at least two brothers and one sister. The family moved to California in the early to mid 1950s where Teresa graduated from George Washington Preparatory High School around 1966 where she was a top student and active in the arts. She was a talented singer and came to the attention of a newly formed performing group called the Doodletown Pipers. Teresa was invited to join the group and declined college scholarship offers to join the group. She is listed as a founding member and sang with them for about three years.
The Doodletown Pipers were considered an easy listening ensemble of 20 or more singers. Most of their recordings appear to have been “covers” of popular songs originally charted by other artists. Teresa toured with the group for about three years as they sang in live performances and on variety shows on television. Her father Mannie died curing that period. About the time she left the Doodletown Pipers, she had come to the attention of George Shlatter, producer of the television show “Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In.” On this show she performed in comedy spots, but perhaps is best known as a sort of go go dancer, who between other clips would be shown as the camera zoomed in to reveal sayings painted on her body. The application and removal of the sayings took hours and was not something that she looked back on with fondness. She left the show to pursue other opportunities after about two dozen performances around 1970 or 1971. “Laugh In” ran from 1967 to 1973, It’s regular cast included Dan Rowan, Dick Martin, Gary Owens, Ruth Buzzi, Alan Sues, Arte Johnson, Byron Gilliam, Henry Gibson, Lily Tomlin, Jo Anne Worley, Goldie Hawn, Judy Carne, Johnny Brown, Barbara Sharma, Richard Dawson, Graves and others.
She made one or two tours with Bob Hope as a headliner for his GI tours in southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. In 1970, Hope’s lineup included singer and actress Connie Stephens, Teresa, Broadway dancer Suzanne Charney, Eva Rueber-Staier who had just been crowned 1970 Miss World, actress Romy Schnaeder and a dance group known as the Golddiggers. In a 1972 newspaper interview, Teresa mentioned being cast in a television pilot called “Keeping up with the Joneses” which was released as a made for television movie and not picked up as a series.
After “Laugh In” Teresa was cast in a limited series called “The Funny Side.” This was a short lived series of six episodes written to explore the funny side of marriage for five unique couples. Hosted by Gene Kelly, it was made up of skits of interaction between the couples. Teresa starred along side John Amos. After this, she made a few guest appearances in other comedy and dramatic series.
Around that time, Teresa was cast as a co-star in an unrelated series of films including “That Man Bolt,” “Vampira” and “Black Eye.” She also appeared in what seemed to be Arthur Godfrey’s last variety show in 1972 called “Arthur Godfrey’s Portable Electric Medicine Show.”
In 1974, a major film was releases called “Get Christie Love” in which Teresa played the title role, a Los Angeles police detective. In the pilot, her character goes undercover to help break up a drug ring. The success of the film opened the door for a series of the same name that ran for two years. The series was carried on ABC and its 22 episodes aired from the fall of 1974 to the spring of 1975. The series was also significant in that it was only the second such series (after Diahann Carroll’s series “Julia”) in which an African American actor was cast in a leading role that was other than stereotypical. Other comments about the series include that scripts and plot lines were altered to accommodate Teresa’s religious views.
In 1973, she was introduced to Jehovah’s Witnesses by a female cousin named Wilson who had previously joined the movement. While on location in England filming “Vampira” (also known as “Old Dracula”) with David Niven she came in contact with a British couple who also brought her further into the process. Teresa felt that this movement filled a void in her life. Jehovah’s Witness is not considered a mainline Protestant denomination through it now has millions of followers. Teresa was baptized in 1974 and made public appearances on behalf of the movement after that.
Teresa did not accept any other film or television work after “Get Cristie Love” and retired entirely from the entertainment business in 1984. She lived in Los Angeles with her mother. Tragically, there was a fire at her home caused by a faulty space heater on October 10, 2002. Teresa was apparently overcome by smoke and died after being transported to a local hospital at age 54.
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