Aalda is best known for her work in television as one of the first African-American daytime soap opera heroines, playing DiDi Bannister-Stoner on ABC's The Edge of Night[1] from 1981 until the show's cancellation in 1984.

For many years before that she was a writer-performer with the sketch comedy troupe Off Center Theatre in New York, and toured with the Boston-based improv group, The Proposition, along with notable animation voice actor and director, Charlie Adler.

She also had regular roles on the CBS sitcom The Royal Family, as the daughter of Redd Foxx and Della Reese,[3] and the HBO series 1st & Ten, as the wife of O. J. Simpson's character.

Aalda also achieved notoriety recurring on the CBS sitcom Designing Women, as Anthony's yuppie-from-hell girlfriend, Lita Ford, and on the NBC soap opera Sunset Beach as the tragically disfigured Lena Hart.

Aalda has also appeared in movies, co-starring in the urban cult film Class Act as rapper Kid's clueless mom, and as Coach Harrison in Nobody's Perfect.