GOOD TIMES Actress and Broadway Alum Ja'Net DuBois Passes Away
BroadwayWorld is saddened to report the passing of "Good Times" actress Ja'Net DuBois. The New York Times states she passed away in her sleep on Monday at her home in Glendale, California.
She was best known as Willona Woods on the sitcom "Good Times," which aired from 1974 to 1979. She was also known for co-writing and performing the theme song "Movin' on Up" for "The Jeffersons," which aired from 1975 until 1985.
At the beginning of her career, she went by her birth name Jeannette Dubois. Its under this name she made her Broadway debut in 1960 in "The Long Dream." In 1964, she was in "Golden Boy" alongside Sammy Davis Jr. and Louis Gossett Jr.
In 1992, she co-starred with Clifton Davis in Maya Angelou's "And I Still Rise." The play written and directed by Angelou premiered in September at the Arts Council Theatre in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Throughout her career, DuBois co-starred in films such as "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka" and "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle" and on television in "Moesha," "The STEVE HARVEY Show," "A Different World" and "The Wayans Bros."
In the '80s, she opened and operated a performing-arts school for teenagers in Long Island called the Ja'Net DuBois Academy of Theater Arts and Sciences. She also co-founded the Pan African Film & Arts Festival in Los Angeles with Danny Glover and Ayuko Babu.
The New York Times reports DuBois' family states she was 74 when she died, but public records indicate she was older.
She is survived by her son, Provat Gupta, her daughters Rani Gupta and Kesha Gupta-Fields, and a sister, Lilian DuBois. Her son, Raj Kristo Gupta, died of cancer in 1987 at age 36.
