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Of all the great things about television, the greatest is that it’s on every single day. TV history is being made, day in and day out, in ways big and small. In an effort to better appreciate this history, we’re taking a look back, every day, at one particular TV milestone.
IMPORTANT DATE IN TV HISTORY: January 2, 1971
WHY IT’S IMPORTANT: While television is perhaps the broadest reaching of all our mediums, it can also be incredibly personal. There are innumerable niches and countless ways that TV shows and their performers can have an impact upon us that is incredibly different than the impact it has on others.
I say all this as introduction to this article because I can tell a lot of people are going to read that headline and be all, “Who?” Accomplished and talented an actress as she is, Renée Elise Goldsberry’s most notable television roles remain a recurring guest part on The Good Wife and decade-old work on a defunct daytime soap opera. Of course, that’s only the most reductive way to talk about Goldsberry’s screen career, while the truth is that she’s been an actress on the rise for a long time, and that she’s really come into her own in the past year is an incredibly satisfying success story.
The Good Wife is a TV show that has always done very well by his guest stars, and prosecutor Geneva Pine, as played by Goldsberry, has always been an excellent foil for Alicia Florrick, Diane Lockhart, and the like.
Also don’t underestimate the draw of a soap opera actress made good. Actors and actresses from Julianne Moore to Anne Heche to Michael B. Jordan have cut their teeth on the daytime soaps, and Goldsberry’s four-year stint on One Life to Live as Evangeline Williamson was not merely a training ground but an opportunity to build up a fanbase.
Of course, the reason we’re paying extra special attention to Goldsberry’s TV bona fides this year is that she’s about six months away from winning a Tony Award for her performance in Hamilton, the biggest thing to happen to Broadway in years. Of all the performers for whom Hamilton will provide a springboard into further, lasting success, I’m happiest that it’s happening for an actress I’ve been rooting for since 2004.
And if this all leads to Geneva Pine returning to The Good Wife in a year to oust Peter Florrick as governor of Illinois, all the better.
