Esther Sutherland (August 29, 1932 – December 31, 1986) was an American film actress who made a name for herself in several features of the 1970s and 1980s often portraying nurses, maids, spinster aunts, Jamaican women, cleaning ladies, and matriarch types.

Upon graduating from high school, she began her career as a jazz and gospel singer in various New York nightclubs and churches and later appeared in several well known theatre productions both on and off Broadway, some of which included The Piano Lesson, A Raisin in the Sun, Blues for Mister Charlie, Black Nativity, Dutchman, and revivals of Cabin in the Sky and Porgy and Bess.

She found a great deal of success in film and television,[1] and went on to appear in such syndicated programs as Kojak, Sanford and Son, The Jeffersons, Hill Street Blues, Archie Bunker's Place and Lou Grant.

She appeared alongside to such equally established performers as Pam Grier, Gene Wilder,[1] Redd Foxx, Dolly Parton, Richard Pryor, and Marsha Mason.

Aside from performing, Sutherland was a devout Methodist, a staunch Democrat, and she also enjoyed writing poetry, painting in oils, sculpting, and was a volunteer in narrating audiobooks for the blind.