Ja’Net DuBois was the personification of cool on Good Times

The Undefeated

DuBois, who died Tuesday at the age of 74, "knew how to make an entrance," says Keith Murphy. "In the annals of television sitcom history, few actors injected their character’s on-screen arrival with as much eye-winking swagger as did DuBois in Norman Lear’s 1970s landmark series Good Times." In a 2006 interview, DuBois told Bravo's Andy Cohen her job as Willona Woods "was to make it right, fast and funny. It was a wonderful thing that happened. It changed the scene for the type of black woman being shown. The wigs, the hats, my everything was a dream come true.” Murphy adds: "Given that the at times controversial Good Times took place at Chicago’s infamous Cabrini-Green housing project, her impact as one of TV’s most indelible black style icons in a mostly white television landscape cannot be overstated. Way before Shonda Rhimes introduced us to Scandal’s Olivia Pope (played with ostentatious splendor and soaring attitude by perennial baddie Kerry Washington), DuBois was the personification of cool. Plus, the risk-taking storyline of a divorced black woman, totally in control, with a rotation of suitors and who would later adopt a child (!!!) was shocking stuff on the small screen in those years."

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• To call Willona Woods comic relief is to miss the point: "With Good Times tackling topics like child abuse, black unemployment, gang violence, loan sharks, and even death, Willona always breezed into apartment 17C to lighten the mood with some hope," says Miles Marshall Lewis. "She had her own issues, most of which swirled around the men she dated: Even today, memes circulate social media with Willona cutting stank eyes at wannabe boyfriends who can’t hang. Yet, she embodied unflagging optimism in the face of the socioeconomic situation surrounding the Evans family. Willona dared to live a vivacious life on-screen, a pioneering move at a time when single women in their forties weren’t expected to be happy about that singlehood."
• Ja’Net DuBois last appeared in public with her Good Times co-stars earlier this month on Feb. 1, at a fan meet-and-greet in Burbank