Shirley Hemphill

Hemphill was a television actress best known for her role as waitress Shirley Wilson on the ABC sitcom What’s Happening!!

Hemphill was born in Asheville, North Carolina. An aspiring stand-up comedian, Hemphill sent a cassette tape of one of her comedy routines to Flip Wilson. Wilson was impressed by her routine and in turn, sent her a cassette recorder and a dozen roses. Wilson also invited Hemphill to visit the set of The Flip Wilson Show. After the visit, Hemphill returned to her job in Asheville but decided to pursue a career in comedy instead. She quit her job and traveled to Los Angeles by bus. Hemphill got a job waitressing during the day and performed at The Comedy Store at night.

By 1976, Hemphill’s stand-up routine started to get noticed and caught the attention of casting agent Joan Murray. Murray cast Hemphill in guest roles on Good Times which lead to another guest starring role on All’s Fair. After seeing her performance on Good Times, Norman Lear offered Hemphill her own spin-off series but she turned it down. Instead, she auditioned and won the role of sarcastic waitress Shirley Wilson on the ABC sitcom What’s Happening!!. The series was a modest hit for ABC but was beset with behind the scene problems. In the series’ second season, Fred Berry and Ernest Thomas staged a walkout over their dressing room conditions which they claimed were unsuitable. During the series’ third season, Fred Berry demanded more money and reportedly convinced Ernest Thomas and Haywood Nelson to join him in a strike. Producers opted to cancel the series instead of increasing the actors’ salaries.

Following the cancellation of What’s Happening, Hemphill auditioned for the role of the cook on Archie Bunker’s Place, but lost out to Anne Meara. The day after losing the role, Hemphill was offered the starring role in her own sitcom One in a Million. On the series, she portrayed Shirley Simmons, a taxi driver who inherited a huge corporation and fortune from one of her customers. The series debuted on ABC on January 8, 1980 but failed to attract a sufficient audience. ABC canceled the series in June 1980.

Afterward, Hemphill would spent most of the early ’80s working in nightclubs around the country and doing the occasional guest appearance on TV shows, including The Love Boat and Trapper John, M.D.. In 1985, she was invited to co-star on the revival of What’s Happening!! entitled What’s Happening Now!!, which aired in syndication from 1985 to 1988. After What’s Happening Now!! ended its three-year run, she again worked the nightclub scene and doing the occasional acting gig on a number of ’90s comedy sitcoms. In 1994, she appeared in her first movie, CB4, starring Chris Rock. Two years later she co-starred in her second movie, Shoot the Moon, starring Whitney Anderson.

Throughout her career, Hemphill performed her stand-up routine on a number of popular TV shows including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, A&E’s An Evening at the Improv, BET’s Black Comedy Showcase and Black Comedy Tonight. She was also a regular at The Laugh Factory comedy club in Los Angeles. A year before her death, Hemphill appeared in an episode of The Jenny Jones Show in a What’s Happening!! reunion show; actors Ernest Thomas and Haywood Nelson also appeared. Seems she milked that series for all it was worth.

In later years, Shirley’s health was failing. Her weight was taking a toll on her knees, so she needed a walker – at age 52. She was also plagued with kidney problems and according to one published report, Shirley was so self conscious about her illness, she had her phone number changed so friends wouldn’t find out how ill she really was. She ambled around her home, preferring to be alone. She didn’t like taking pills and had a fear of being cut, so would never have surgery to alleviate any of her symptoms.

Rerun was quoted, “The last time I saw Shirley I literally had to hold her up as we walked. She was very sick. The bones on her face were all sunken in. She had lost a lot of weight. She was in pretty bad shape.

On Friday December 10, 1999, her gardener was peeking inside her window. Apparently, this was normal. He was expecting to find her sitting in her chair, looking outside. Instead, he saw her laying on the floor of the master bedroom, not moving. He called 911 and police arrived and found her dead at 9:47 AM. She had been dead for several days. Her hands were “blackened and dry.” One of the investigators recognized her from television.

Cause of death: heart attack due to obesity and kidney disease. She died on this date in 1999. She was 52 years old.