Marla Gibbs (born Margaret Bradley; June 14, 1931)[1] is an American actress, singer, comedian, writer, and television producer whose career spans seven decades.

Gibbs also starred on the show's spin-off Checking In (1981) and the NBC sitcom 227 (1985–1990); she co-produced the latter series, played the lead role of Mary Jenkins, and sang the theme song.

[3] In later years, Gibbs played supporting roles in films The Meteor Man (1993), Lost & Found (1999), The Visit (2000), The Brothers (2001), Madea's Witness Protection (2012), Grantham & Rose (2015), and Lemon (2017) and on the Shondaland-produced TV shows Station 19 (2018) and Grey's Anatomy (2022).

In August 2021, Gibbs began playing Olivia Price on the NBC daytime drama Days of Our Lives.

Her father, Douglas Bradley of Waterproof, Louisiana (d. 1947), was a self-taught mechanic of Creole ancestry who owned an ice company.

Her mother, Ophelia Birdie (née Kemp; d. 1967) was a businesswoman of Haitian descent who occasionally ran numbers in the gambling trade.

When she was 16, her father died and Gibbs was sent to live with her mother and stepfather in Detroit where she attended Northern High School for a semester during her junior year.

[citation needed] In 1963, Gibbs relocated to Los Angeles to recuperate from an ulcer and began working as a reservations agent for United Airlines.

[3] Gibbs responded in a 2015 interview on Broadway Showbiz, when asked if she'd based any of her characters on real-life people: "Yes, Florence was like my aunt and grandmother so I lived it.

She also guest starred on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Martin, Touched by an Angel (with Della Reese), Judging Amy, ER, and Southland.

[14] Gibbs also had starring roles in two television pilots: Old Soul alongside Ellen Burstyn and Rita Moreno for NBC in 2014, and ABC's Jalen Vs. Everybody in 2017.

In 2019, Gibbs reprised her role as Florence on Live in Front of a Studio Audience: Norman Lear's All in the Family and The Jeffersons, less than a month before her 88th birthday.

Her older sister, actress Susie Garrett, played Cherie's grandmother Betty Johnson on the NBC series Punky Brewster.