Olga James (February 16, 1929 – January 25, 2025) was an American singer and actress best known for her role in the film Carmen Jones (1954).
Although James studied opera, she preferred to sing Mozart art songs, German lieder, and French chansons.
Through networking at Juilliard, she was hired for her first professional role in 1952 as member of the production of Virgil Thomson's opera Four Saints in Three Acts which performed at a festival in Paris.
[2] Some time after she returned to New York, she earned a coveted spot as a singer in the all-black revue Larry Steele's Smart Affairs at Atlantic City's Club Harlem.
The couple had a surprise church wedding in Florida, arranged by Adderley's parents and spent their honeymoon at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach.