Gail Fisher was an American actress who was one of the first black women to play substantive roles in American television
Background
The youngest of five children, Fisher was born in Orange, New Jersey. Her father died when she was two years old and she was raised by her mother, Ona Fisher, who raised her family with a home operated hair styling business while living in the Potter"s Crossing neighborhood of Edison, New Jersey.
Education
She graduated from Metuchen High School in Metuchen, New Jersey.
Career
During her teenage years she was a cheerleader and entered several beauty contests, winning the titles of Mission Transit, Mission Black New Jersey, and Mission Press Photographer. As a young woman, she also worked as a model. Fisher made her first television appearance in 1960 at age 25, appearing in the syndicated program Play of the Week.
Also during the early 1960s, she appeared in a television commercial for All laundry detergent, which she said made her "the first black female -- no, make that black, period -- to make a national television commercial, on camera, with lines." In 1965 Herbert Blau cast her in a theatrical production of Danton"s She first appeared in Mannix during the second season, when Mannix left the detective firm Intertect and set up shop as a private investigator.
In 1968, she made guest appearances on the television series My Three Sons, Love, American Style, and Room 222. After Mannix was canceled in 1975 she rarely appeared on television
She guest-starred in a 1980 episode of The White Shadow. She died in Los Angeles in 2000, aged 65, reportedly from renal failure.
Gail Fisher was cremated.
Membership
As a student of acting in New York City, she worked with Lee Strasberg and became a member of the Repertory Theater at Lincoln Center, where she worked with Elia Kazan and Herbert Blau.