Hollywood actress Dalyce Curry has died in the horrific Los Angeles wildfires, after a blaze destroyed her home.
The 95-year-old grandmother’s remains were discovered in the wreckage amid the devastating Eaton Fire, a coroner confirmed on Sunday.
Dalyce, known as Momma D to her family, starred in films including The Blues Brothers, The Ten Commandments and Lady Sings the Blues.
Just after midnight on Tuesday, her granddaughter Kelley returned her to her home in Altadena after a long day of hospital appointments. The following morning, Kelley returned to the area after being notified of a power outage at Dalyce’s house, and was met with the news her grandmother’s home had completely burned down, but there was no sign of her.
An officer suggested she had gone to the Pasadena Civic Centre, where residents displaced by the fire had gathered.
On Friday, with a search launched, Kelley was taken to Dalyce’s home. She said: “It was total devastation. Everything was gone except her blue Cadillac.”
On Sunday, with the search still underway, Kelley told Eyewitness News she was “still praying for a miracle”. She said: “Honestly we don’t feel very hopeful that she’s still here with us.”
Tragically, later on the Sunday, it was confirmed Dalyce had passed away. During the search, her granddaughters paid tribute to her.
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Kelley told KABC: “Our souls are aching, our hearts are broken. She loved Altadena. There is no one who loved that city more than my grandmother. She said she had yet began to live, so I knew she would just be here beyond 100.
“She still wanted to date, she wanted to find a husband… They have to do better with the emergency system because there’s a that was a very elderly kind of community.
“There’s a lot of retirees there, and we can’t just rely on the cellphone, because elderly people don’t really do cellphones. They don’t. That’s not the only way we should notify people when there’s evacuation orders.”
She added: “And why did it not happen earlier? Why was I allowed to be to have access to her home at midnight and not have any danger warnings? No highway signs up the way saying, ‘This is evacuation zone.'”
Loree Beamer-Wilkinson added: “She just loved life, and at 95 she was still very active. She looked beautiful – she took really good care of herself, she took great pride in who she was and who she represented — and she was an amazing grandmother. I felt so privileged to know this woman and to have her as my grandmother.”
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