Holly and Burghardt on the cover of Ebony magazine's October 1979 issue. Jack, however, was always planned to be a short-term character by Holly's design, and was killed off in 1980. During this time, Carla and her mother Sadie found themselves in supporting roles in the storyline involving heroine Edwina Lewis (Margaret Klenck). At the end of 1980, Carla tearfully begs Ed (who by this time was running for lieutenant governor on the same ticket as Herb Callison, played by Anthony Call) to take her back. Even though he acknowledges that he will always love and care for her, he cannot take her back after her marriage to Jack Scott. Feeling the need to start over, Carla leaves Llanview. She returns in 1983 and, after having attended law school in her absence, Carla becomes an Assistant District Attorney. In this new position, she later has to prosecute Ed on manslaughter charges for a police drug bust gone wrong. Also during this time, she is involved in another love triangle. Carla still has feelings for Ed, but she falls in love and nearly marries a football star-turned-nightclub owner Alec Lowndes (Roger Hill). It takes time for Carla to get over that situation. After Alec is out of the picture, she eventually comes back to Ed. In September 1985, Carla accepts a job in Arizona similar to what she was doing in Llanview. After wrapping up odds and ends in town, Carla leaves with her mother Sadie and moves to Arizona. By 1987, Ed and their son Josh would also leave town and move to Arizona to be with them. Sadie dies off-screen in the 1990s. Ed returns to Llanview in 2000 after grandson Jared Hall (Herve Clermont) accepts a job practicing law. Impact and reception Conception and casting One Life to Live creator Agnes Nixon has said she was inspired to create the Carla Gray character after seeing singer Eartha Kitt in a television interview. Kitt expressed her own frustration at facing prejudice from both white and Black audiences because of her light-skinned complexion, and the feeling of not belonging to either group. (Even Carla's surname "Gray" reflects the in-between nature of the character, not "Black" or "white".) According to actress Ellen Holly's memoir, One Life: An Autobiography of an African American Actress, Nixon based Carla's mother Sadie on a maid who worked for Nixon's family when she was growing up