Toni Vaz's family funds Walk of Fame star after actress dies at 101

The price tag for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame stood between $75,000 and $85,000 when Toni Vaz was selected for the honor in 2024. Vaz, a Harlem native who died at the age of 101 just months after receiving the news, will not have a permanent marker on the sidewalk unless her family can cover the cost within two years.

The Walk of Fame requires honorees to pay for their own stars and schedule the unveiling ceremony. A GoFundMe page has been established to help Vaz's relatives raise the necessary funds. Her great-niece, Cheryl Abbott, currently leads the Toni Vaz Foundation and manages the campaign. Abbott works as a talent manager and booking agent in the entertainment industry.

Vaz began her career in the 1960s and 1970s performing stunts for prominent actresses including Dorothy Dandridge, Eartha Kitt, and Cicely Tyson. Her most enduring contribution to the industry was creating the NAACP Image Awards, which held its first ceremony in 1967. Abbott noted that Vaz aimed to expand the range of roles available to actors of color throughout her life.

Abbott described Vaz's motivation as extending beyond her own success. "She did it not just for herself. She did it for the generations in front of her, for a little girl that might walk by and say, 'Mommy, I want to be an actress,'" Abbott said. The family views the star as a way to ensure Vaz's name remains in the history books.

Black actresses today acknowledge the barriers that pioneers like Vaz worked to dismantle. Mahalet Dejene, an actress of Ethiopian descent who appeared in HBO Max's "Gossip Girl" and the medical drama "New Amsterdam," said that while opportunities have increased, a gap remains. "I really think that there's a gap, and I think I would call it 'meaningful diversity,'" Dejene said. She observed that people of color often remain secondary to major plot points rather than leading them.

Dejene credited performers like Vaz for opening doors for later award winners such as Viola Davis and Angela Bassett. Those actresses reached heights previously unheard of for women of color, creating a path for current talent. Dejene also pointed to the 2015 #OscarsSoWhite backlash, which criticized the Academy for nominating no person of color in acting categories that year, as evidence of ongoing underrecognition in mainstream institutions.

Despite the financial burden, Dejene emphasized the symbolic weight of the Walk of Fame. "The Hollywood Walk of Fame is a cross-cultural zeitgeist, the thing that suggests you have made it in this career," Dejene said. She added with a laugh that the requirement to pay for the star is a known condition of the honor. The family is currently working to meet the deadline to install Vaz's star.

Vaz's selection in 2024 recognized a career that spanned decades of Hollywood history. Her family is now focused on completing the final step of the recognition process. The GoFundMe campaign allows fans to contribute to the cost of the star, which will mark her contribution to the entertainment industry on the famous Hollywood sidewalk.