Special agent Cleopatra Jones (Tamara Dobson), six feet two inches of sinewy fighting fury clad in layers of runway chic fashions in bright rainbow colors, strolls up a sand dune and orders the destruction of a Turkish poppy field. Thousands of miles away, an L.A. drug lord named Mommy (Shelley Winters hamming it up with garish wigs and lecherous leers) screeches as her life blood burns away and lures Cleopatra stateside to plot her demise. A product of the “blaxploitation” explosion of low-budget thrillers featuring black heroes in the 1970s, Cleopatra Jones may not be the best of the batch but revels in the most outrageous fashion sense. Cleo looks great in furs, pantsuits, ponchos, turbans–a new outfit every scene–and drives a sleek black Corvette with a personalized license plate: “CLEO.” It’s a shame that the producers dropped the exotic potential of a globetrotting super-agent for an L.A.-bound gangster film, which is entertaining in a comic-book way but rarely reaches the energetic levels of the gritty Pam Grier action pictures Coffy and Foxy Brown. Bernie Casey is a role model of dignity and action as a neighborhood activist, and a garishly overdressed Antonio Fargas delivers a suitably flamboyant performance as Mommy’s pusher Doodlebug. The glamorous super-agent flew off to Hong Kong for the 1975 sequel, Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold. –Sean Axmaker

Popularity: 2% [?]

Blacula is a 1972 American horror film produced for American International Pictures. It was directed by William Crain and stars William Marshall in the title role as an 18th century African prince who is turned into a vampire while visiting Transylvania. Two centuries later, he rises from his coffin attacking various residents of Los Angeles. The prince meets Tina who he believes is the reincarnation of his deceased lover.

Blacula was released to mixed reviews in the United States and was one of the top grossing films of the year. It was the first film to receive an award for Best Horror Film at the Saturn Awards. Blacula was followed by the sequel Scream, Blacula, Scream in 1973 and inspired a small wave of blaxploitation themed horror films.

Plot

In 1780, Prince Mamuwalde (William H. Marshall), the ruler of an African nation, seeks the help of Count Dracula (Charles Macaulay) in suppressing the slave trade. Dracula refuses to help and transforms Mamuwalde into a vampire and imprisons him in a sealed coffin. Mamuwalde’s wife, Luva (Vonetta McGee) is also imprisoned and dies in captivity. In 1972, the coffin has been purchased as part of an estate by two interior decorators, Bobby McCoy (Ted Harris) and Billy Schaffer (Rick Metzler) and shipped to Los Angeles. Bobby and Billy open the coffin and become Prince Mamuwalde’s first victims. At Bobby’s funeral, Mamuwalde encounters Tina (Vonetta McGee), who Prince Mamuwalde believes is the reincarnation of his deceased wife. On investigating the corpse at the funeral, Dr. Gordon Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) helps Lt. Peters (Gordon Pinsent) with an investigation of murders that are occurring.

Prince Mamuwalde’s continues to kill and transform various people he encounters into vampires as Tina begins to fall in love with him. Thomas, Peters, and Michelle follow the trail of murder victims and begin to believe a vampire is responsible. After Thomas digs up Billy’s coffin, Billy’s corpse rises as a vampire and attacks Peters who fends him off. After finding a photo taken of Mamuwalde where his body is not visible, Thomas and Peters track Mamuwalde hideout defeating several vampires while Mamuwalde escapes. Mamuwalde lures Tina to his water works later while Thomas and a group of police officers chase after him. Mamuwalde dispatches several officers as one shoots Tina. To save Tina from death, Mamuwalde transforms her into a vampire. After Peters manages to kill the vampire Tina, Mamuwalde believes he can not live any longer after losing her twice. Mamuwalde leaves for the surface where the sunlight rots his flesh and kills him.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Coffy is a 1973 blaxploitation film written and directed by American filmmaker Jack Hill. The story is about a black female vigilante played by Pam Grier.

The film’s tagline in advertising was “They call her ‘Coffy’ and she’ll cream you!”

Production

According to writer/director Hill, the project began when American International Pictures’ head of production, Larry Gordon, lost the rights to the film Cleopatra Jones after making a handshake deal with the producers. Gordon subsequently approached Hill to quickly make a movie about an [African American woman’s revenge and beat Cleopatra Jones to market. The film ended up earning more money than Cleopatra Jones and established Grier as an icon of the genre.

Coffy is notable in its depiction of a strong female lead (a capable nurse), something rare in the genre at the time, and also in its then-unfashionable anti-drug message. It was remade in 1981, with an all-white cast, as Lovely But Deadly.

Plot

Nurse “Coffy” Coffin (Pam Grier), seeks revenge for her younger sister’s drug related death, a product of the drug underworld, mob bosses and chain of violence that exists in her city. The film opens with Coffy showing her vigilante nature by killing a drug supplier and dealer. She does this without getting caught by using her sexuality as an attractive and athletic African American woman who will do anything for a drug fix, which lures the men back to their residence and gives Coffy the privacy needed to kill them both. Directly following the killing, Coffy returns to her normal job at a local hospital in an operating room, but is asked to leave when she is too jumpy when handing tools to the surgeon.

The film introduces Coffy’s African American police friend Carter (William Elliot), who used to date Coffy in their younger years. Carter is portrayed as a straight-shooting officer who is not willing to bend the law for the mob or thugs that have been bribing many officers at his precinct. Coffy does not believe his strong moral resolve until two hooded men break into Carter’s house while she is there and beat Carter into submission. It is later discovered that Carter will be lucky to walk again. This further enrages Coffy and gives her more vindication to continue her work as a vigilante, killing off those responsible for harming Carter and her sister.

Coffy’s boyfriend Howard Brunswick (Booker Bradshaw) is a city councillor and appears to be deeply in love with Coffy at the beginning of the film. Coffy admires Brunswick for his body and use of law to solve societal problems. She is very excited when he announces his plan to run for Congress, and his purchase of a night club. The two share a passionate love scene in the first part of the film that helps build the viewer’s image of Coffy’s sensual and stereotypical feminine side, while still portraying her in the rest of the film as a hardcore crime fighter.

Coffy’s next targets in the film are a pimp named King George (Robert Do Qui), who is supposedly one of the largest providers of prostitutes and illegal substances in the city, and Mafia boss Arturo Vitroni (Allan Arbus).

Coffy questions and abuses a former patient of hers that was a known drug user to gain insight into what type of woman King George likes and where he keeps his stash of drugs. This is the first scene where Coffy brutalizes another woman and shows no remorse because the former patient is using drugs again and a deviant of society. Coffy quickly escapes and goes to a resort posing as a Jamaican woman looking to work for King George.

George is quickly interested in her exotic nature and asks her to come with him back to his house to experience Coffy himself first. One of the prostitutes returns from a far away job and gets disgruntled and jealous when seeing George taking such a liking to Coffy. At an evening party later that day Coffy and the other prostitutes get in a massive brawl, which entices mob boss Vitroni and he demands that he have her tonight. Coffy prepares herself to murder Vitroni and just when she is about to shoot, is overtaken by his men. She lies and tells Vitroni that King George ordered her to kill him, which makes Vitroni order George to be murdered. Vitroni’s men kill George by dragging him through the streets with a noose.

Coffy then discovers her clean-cut boyfriend is actually corrupt when she is shown to him at a meeting of the mob and several police officials. He denies knowing her other than as a prostitute and Coffy is sent to her death. Once again, Coffy uses her sexuality to seduce her would-be killers. They try injecting her with drugs to sedate her, but she has switched these out for sugar earlier. Faking a high, she kills her unsuspecting hitmen with a razor blade.

Running to avoid capture, Coffy then car-jacks a vehicle to escape. Coffy drives to Vitroni’s house, murders him, and then goes to Brunswick’s to do the same. He pleads forgiveness and just as she is about to accept, a naked white woman comes out of the bedroom. At this, Coffy shoots Brunswick in the groin. The film then closes with Coffy being satisfied at having avenged her sister and Carter.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Pamela Suzette “Pam” Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974′s Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino‘s film Jackie Brown. She is one of a few African-American actresses to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history. Director Quentin Tarantino remarked that she may have been cinema’s first female action star.

Early life

Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force. She has one sister and one brother.^[3] At age 6 Grier was raped by two boys when she was left unattended at her aunt’s house. “It took so long to deal with the pain of that,” she says, “You try to deal with it, but you never really get over it,” she adds. “And not just me; my family endured so much guilt and anger that something like that happened to me.”^[4] Because of her father’s military career, her family moved frequently during her childhood, to various places such as England, and eventually settled in Denver, Colorado, where she attended East High School. While in Denver, Colorado she appeared in a number of stage productions, and participated in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition toward Metropolitan State College. Contrary to previous reports she states that she is not the cousin of National Football League great Roosevelt Grier or to National Hockey League player Mike Grier.

Career

Grier moved to Los Angeles, California in 1967, where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American International Pictures (AIP) company. She was discovered by director Jack Hill, who cast her in his women in prison films The Big Doll House (1971), and The Big Bird Cage (1972). While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive women, beginning with Jack Hill’s Coffy (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers; her character was advertised in the trailer as the “baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!” The film, which was filled with sexual and violent elements typical of the genre, was a box- office hit, and Grier was noted as the first African-American female to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were males. In his review of Coffy, film critic Roger Ebert noted that Grier was an actress of “beautiful face and astonishing form” and that she possessed a kind of “physical life” missing from other actresses.^[5] Grier subsequently played similar characters in the AIP films Foxy Brown (1974), Friday Foster, and Sheba, Baby (both 1975).

With the demise of blaxploitation Grier appeared in smaller roles for many years. She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a prostitute in Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983), and Steven Seagal‘s detective partner in Above the Law (1988). She made guest appearances on Miami Vice, Martin, Night Court and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and also had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story between 1986 and 1988. She also appeared on Sinbad, Preston Chronicles, The Cosby Show, The Wayans Brother Show, and Mad TV. In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Dogg‘s video for Doggy Dogg World.

In the late 1990s Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series Linc’s. She again appeared in 1997 with the title role in Quentin Tarantino‘s Jackie Brown, a film that partly paid homage to her ’70s blaxploitation movies. As of 2004^[update] she appears in the cable television series The L Word as Kit Porter and occasionally guest-stars in such television series as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (where she is a recurring character).

In 2010 Grier began appearing in a recurring role on the hit science fiction series Smallville as the villain Amanda Waller, also known as White Queen, head agent of Checkmate, a covert operations agency.

Also in 2010 she wrote her memoir, “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts” with Andrea Cagan.^[6]

Personal life

Grier has never married and has no children. She dated basketball player, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, during the early 1970s, and had a 18-month affair with actor/comedian Richard Pryor around 1976–77. She also was romantically linked to actor/comedian Freddie Prinze in the 1970s.^[6] In 1998 she was engaged to music executive, Kevin Evans, but the engagement was terminated in 1999. From 2000 to 2008 she dated marketing executive, Peter Hempel.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Dolemite is a 1975 blaxploitation feature film, and is also the name of its principal character, played by Rudy Ray Moore, who co-wrote the film and its soundtrack. Moore, who started his career as a stand-up comedian in the late 1960s, heard around that time a rhymed toast by a local homeless man about an urban hero named Dolemite, and decided to adopt the persona of Dolemite as an alter-ego in his act.

He included the character on his 1970 debut album, Eat Out More Often, which reached the top 25 on the Billboard charts. He released several more comedy albums using this persona. In 1975, Moore decided to create a film about Dolemite, using many of his friends and fellow comedians as cast and crew.^[1] The film was directed by D’Urville Martin, who appears as the villain Willie Green.

Cast

• Dolemite (Rudy Ray Moore): the protagonist of the movie. Dolemite is seen jailed in the beginning of the movie, followed by a flashback of detectives examining the trunk of his car in which stolen fur coats and drugs were found. It is obvious Dolemite was framed, but he spends time in jail nevertheless. Dolemite is later pardoned and released. Throughout the movie, as Dolemite attempts to rekindle his reputation on the streets and reclaim his pride and joy (the club referred to as “The Total Experience”) from Willie Green, he is constantly having run-ins with a pair of detectives, Mitchell and White, who framed Dolemite before (as seen in the flashback), and who are hell-bent on getting Dolemite back into the slammer.

• Queen Bee (Lady Reed): runs a whorehouse that references Dolemite as the part time owner on several occasions throughout the movie. Queen Bee is the only woman in Dolemite’s household who Dolemite speaks to as an equal, rather than a pimp. While Queen Bee is very emotional about having Dolemite return home after time in jail, no reference of an intimate relationship is ever made during the film.

• Willie Green (D’Urville Martin): the antagonist. Willie Green is seen in the initial flashback as having a leading part in the framing of Dolemite. Willie Green takes over Dolemite’s club “The Total Experience” while Dolemite is serving hard time. Willie Green and the city’s mayor, Mayor Daley, have a peculiar partnership. The mayor will abuse his office in helping Willie Green avoid problems with the law, while Willie Green promises black votes for the mayor’s upcoming re-election.

• Reverend Gibbs (West Gale): a black separatist with many connections, the Reverend leads a radical church in the “Fourth Ward.” He tips off Dolemite regarding who set him up two years prior, as well as who is supplying drugs to the community.

• Mitchell (John Kerry): a corrupt detective who – under the direction of Mayor Daley and Willie Green – frames Dolemite and sends him to prison. When Dolemite is released, he and his partner White attempt to frame him again.

• Blakely (Jerry Jones): an FBI man who lurks in the shadows, and knows why Dolemite is out on the street. When the time comes, Blakely apprehends the corrupt detectives Mitchell and White and the corrupt Mayor.

• Creeper (Vainus Rackstraw): better known as the Hamburger Pimp, he is recognized by his dingy “white-T”, characteristic pimp stroll (as he pulls up his pants), and constant begging for spare change and free food.

Follow-ups

A sequel, The Human Tornado, was released in 1976.

In 2001, Dimension Films (no relation to Dimension Pictures) announced that there was a remake of Dolemite in production, starring LL Cool J in the lead role. Details released about the project signaled major differences that would severely tone down the adult (and possibly politically incorrect) nature of the original film, such as making Dolemite not a pimp, but rather an individual framed for a crime he had not committed. Due to massive delays, LL Cool J is no longer attached to the project.^[2]

Popularity: 6% [?]

We are proud to announce that every Monday in May we will be featuring great 70s movies.  In May, we’ll showcase Coffy.  If you haven’t heard of this Pam Grier flick, you need to come back and read about it.  Better yet, go rent it.  We’ll showcase Blacula.  That’s right, they made a movie about a black Dracula and named it Blacula.  You gotta read about this. 

We also cover Dolemite and Shaft, which are probably our two favorite 70s movies.  Finally, we have one more movie that will knock your socks off.  Want to know what it is?  Check back!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Pamela Suzette “Pam” Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974′s Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino’s film Jackie Brown.

She is one of a few African-American actresses to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history.[1] Director Quentin Tarantino remarked that she may have been cinema’s first female action star.

filmography
FILM
The Invited (2010) with Lou Diamond Phillips
Just Wright (2010) with Queen Latifah and Phylicia Rashad
Ladies of the House (2008)
Back in the Day (2005) with Ja Rule, Ving Rhames, Tia Carrere, and Frank Langella
1st to Die (2003) with Tracy Pollan
Baby of the Family (2002) with Vanessa Williams
The Adventures of Pluto Nash (2002) with Eddie Murphy, Randy Quaid, Jay Mohr, Peter Boyle, John Cleese, and Illeana Douglas
Love the Hard Way (2001) with Adrien Brody
Bones (2001) with Snoop Dogg
Ghosts of Mars (2001) with Ice Cube, Joanna Cassidy, and Rosemary Forsyth
3 A.M. (2001) with Danny Glover
Wilder (2000) with Rutger Hauer
Snow Day (2000) with Chris Elliott, Jean Smart, Iggy Pop, John Schneider, and Chevy Chase
Fortress 2 (1999) with Christopher Lambert
Holy Smoke (1999) with Kate Winslet and Harvey Keitel
In Too Deep (1999) with Omar Epps and LL Cool J
Jawbreaker (1999) with Rose McGowan and P.J. Soles
No Tomorrow (1998) with Gary Busey
Fakin’ Da Funk (1997) with Margaret Cho and Tone Loc
Jackie Brown (1997) with Samuel L. Jackson, Bridget Fonda, and Sid Haig
Strip Search (1997) with Michael Pare
Mars Attacks! (1996) with Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Annette Bening, Pierce Brosnan, Danny DeVito, Sarah Jessica Parker, Tom Jones, and Jim Brown
Family Blessings (1996) with Lynda Carter
Escape from L.A. (1996) with Kurt Russell and Steve Buscemi
Original Gangstas (1996) with Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree, and Ron O’Neal
Serial Killer (1995) with Kim Delaney
Posse (1993) with Mario Van Peebles, Issac Hayes, and Paul Bartel
Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey (1991) with Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter, and George Carlin
Class of 1999 (1990) with Stacy Keach
The Package (1989) with Gene Hackman
Above the Law (1988) with Steven Seagal and Sharon Stone
The Allnighter (1987) with Suzanna Hoffs
The Vindicator (1986)
On the Edge (1985) with Bruce Dern
Stand Alone (1985) with Charles Durning
Badge of the Assassin (1985) with James Woods and Yaphet Kotto
Tough Enough (1983) with Dennis Quaid and Warren Oates
Something Wicked This Way Comes (1983) with Jason Robards
Fort Apache, the Bronx (1981) with Paul Newman and Ed Asner
Greased Lightning (1977) with Richard Pryor and Beau Bridges
The Night of the High Tide (1977) with Giacomo Rossi-Stuart
Drum (1976) with Ken Norton and Warren Oates
Bucktown (1975) with Fred Williamson, Thalmus Rasulala, and Carl Weathers
Friday Foster (1975) with Carl Weathers, Yaphet Kotto, and Thalmus Rasulala
Sheba, Baby (1975)
Foxy Brown (1974) with Peter Brown, Antonio Fargas, Sid Haig, and Katheryn Loder
The Arena (1973) with Margaret Markov and Daniele Vargas
Coffy (1973) with Booker Bradshaw, Robert DoQui, Allan Arbus, and Sid Haig
Scream, Blacula, Scream! (1973) with William Marshall, Don Mitchell, Michael Conrad, Lynne Moody, and Barbara Rhoades
The Big Bird Cage (1972) with Sid Haig, Candice Roman, and Anitra Ford
Black Mama, White Mama (1972) with Sid Haig, Lynn Borden, and Margaret Markov
Cool Breeze (1972) with Thalmus Rasulala and John Lupton
Hit Man (1972) with Bernie Casey and John Lupton
The Twilight People (1972) with John Ashley
The Big Doll House (1971) with Sig Haig and Katheryn Loder
Women in Cages (1971)
Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970) with Michael Blodgett and Edy Williams; directed by Russ Meyer; screenplay by Roger Ebert

Popularity: 14% [?]

Question:  Did Bill Cosby Really Launch Afro-Squad?
Michael Peters
Kantuerry, Ohio

Answer:  That is a good question.  The indirect answer is yes!  Bill Cosby was credited with funding the movie Sweet Sweetback’s Baasasssss song, which is often times credited as being the first blaxploitation movie.  That movie spawned movies like Dolemite and Blacula.  Without those movies, there would be no Afro-Squad.  So yes, indirectly, Bill Cosby helped launch the Afro-Squad!

Popularity: 6% [?]

Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song is a 1971 American independent film, written, produced, scored, directed by, and starring Melvin Van Peebles, father of actor Mario Van Peebles (who was also in the movie). It tells the picaresque story of a deprived African American man on his flight from the white authority. Van Peebles began to develop the film after being offered a three-picture contract for Columbia Pictures. No studio would finance the film, so Van Peebles funded the film himself, shooting it independently over a period of 19 days, performing all of his own stunts and appearing in several unsimulated sex scenes. He received a $50,000 loan from Bill Cosby to complete the project. The film’s fast-paced montages and jump-cuts were unique features in American cinema at the time. The picture was censored in some markets, and received mixed critical reviews.

The musical score of Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song was performed by Earth, Wind & Fire. Van Peebles did not have any money for traditional advertising methods, so he released the soundtrack album prior to the film’s release in order to generate publicity. Initially, the film was screened only in two theaters in the United States. It went on to gross $4.1 million at the box office. Huey P. Newton celebrated and welcomed the film’s revolutionary implications, and Sweetback became required viewing for members of the Black Panther Party. The movie is an important work in the history of American cinema because it created a market for independent black films. According to Variety, it demonstrated to Hollywood that films which portrayed “militant” blacks could be highly profitable, leading to the creation of the blaxploitation genre, although some do not consider this example of Van Peebles’ work to be an exploitation film.

Popularity: 6% [?]

Pamela Suzette “Pam” Grier (born May 26, 1949) is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974′s Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino‘s film Jackie Brown. She is one of a few African-American actresses to receive a Golden Globe nomination for Best Actress. She has also been nominated for a SAG as well as a Satellite Award for her performance in the iconic film Jackie Brown. She received an Emmy Award nomination for her work in an Animated Program Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Rotten Tomatoes has ranked her as the second Greatest Female Action Heroine in film history.^[1] Director Quentin Tarantino, in an interview promoting Jackie Brown on Charlie Rose, remarked that she may have been cinema’s first female action star.

Early life

Grier was born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, the daughter of Gwendolyn Sylvia (née Samuels), a homemaker and nurse, and Clarence Ransom Grier, who worked as a mechanic and Technical Sergeant in the United States Air Force. She has one sister and one brother.^[2] Because of her father’s military career, her family moved frequently during her childhood, to various places such as England, and eventually settled in Denver, Colorado, where she attended East High School. While in Denver, Colorado she appeared in a number of stage productions, and participated in beauty contests to raise money for college tuition toward Metropolitan State College. Contrary to previous reports she states that she is not the cousin of National Football League great Roosevelt Grier or to National Hockey League player Mike Grier.

[edit] Career

Grier moved to Los Angeles, California in 1967, where she was initially hired as a receptionist at the American International Pictures (AIP) company. She was discovered by director Jack Hill, who cast her in his women in prison films The Big Doll House (1971), and The Big Bird Cage (1972). While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive women, beginning with Jack Hill’s Coffy (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers; her character was advertised in the trailer as the “baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!” The film, which was filled with sexual and violent elements typical of the genre, was a box- office hit, and Grier was noted as the first African-American female to headline an action film, as protagonists of previous blaxploitation films were males. In his review of Coffy, film critic Roger Ebert noted that Grier was an actress of “beautiful face and astonishing form” and that she possessed a kind of “physical life” missing from other actresses.^[3] Grier subsequently played similar characters in the AIP films Foxy Brown (1974), Friday Foster, and Sheba, Baby (both 1975).

With the demise of blaxploitation, Grier appeared in smaller roles for many years. She acquired progressively larger character roles in the 1980s, including a prostitute in Fort Apache the Bronx (1981), a witch in Something Wicked this Way Comes (1983), and Steven Seagal‘s detective partner in Above the Law (1988). She made guest appearances on Miami Vice, Martin, Night Court and The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and also had a recurring role in the TV series Crime Story between 1986 and 1988. She also appeared on Sinbad, Preston Chronicles, The Cosby Show, The Wayans Brother Show, and Mad TV. In 1994, Grier appeared in Snoop Doggy Dogg’s video for Doggy Dogg World.

According to The Lives of John Lennon by Albert Goldman, she was at the famed Troubadour night club in Hollywood the night Lennon was ejected for drunkenly heckling the Smothers Brothers.

In the late 1990s Grier was a cast member of the Showtime series Linc’s. She again appeared in 1997 with the title role in Quentin Tarantino‘s Jackie Brown, a film that partly paid homage to her ’70s blaxploitation movies. As of 2004^[update], she appears in the cable television series The L Word as Kit Porter and occasionally guest-stars in such television series as Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (where she is a recurring character).

In 2010, Grier began appearing in a recurring role on the hit sci-fi series Smallville as the villain Amanda Waller, also known as White Queen, head agent of Checkmate, a covert operations agency.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Her big-screen heyday included roles in ‘Blacula,’ ‘Hammer’ and ‘Shaft in Africa.’ She later appeared with Clint Eastwood in ‘The Eiger Sanction.’ In the ’80s, she had numerous TV credits

Vonetta McGee, an actress whose big-screen heyday during the blaxploitation era of the 1970s included leading roles in “Blacula” and “Shaft in Africa,” has died. She was 65.

McGee died Friday at a hospital in Berkeley after experiencing cardiac arrest and being on life support for two days, said family spokeswoman Kelley Nayo. Although McGee had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 17, Nayo said, her death was not related to the disease.

McGee was described as “one of the busiest and most beautiful black actresses” by Times movie reviewer Kevin Thomas in 1972, the year she appeared opposite Fred Williamson in the black action movie “Hammer,” and had starring roles in the crime-drama “Melinda” and the horror film “Blacula.”

She went on to appear with Richard Roundtree in “Shaft in Africa” (1973), and co-starred with Max Julien in “Thomasine & Bushrod” (1974).

McGee also appeared with Clint Eastwood in the 1975 action-thriller “The Eiger Sanction,” prompting The Times’ Thomas to write in his review: “Her parrying with Eastwood, verbally and otherwise, is enough to scorch the screen.”

“I was pleased to see her get a role with Clint Eastwood,” said Williamson, who knew McGee before they made “Hammer.” “Not many black actors had that opportunity to be in a movie where color doesn’t matter.

“Vonetta McGee was like a lot of actors and actresses at that time, like myself, Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree, Billy Dee Williams and Pam Grier, in that we had more talent than we were allowed to show because everything was perceived as a black project. Once they categorize you, your marketability becomes limited.”

McGee was no fan of the “blaxploitation” label that was attached to many of the films featuring black casts in the ’70s.

That label, she told The Times in 1979, was used “like racism, so you don’t have to think of the individual elements, just the whole. If you study propaganda, you understand how this works.”

Although The Times reported that McGee “calls herself one of the lucky graduates of the black-film genre,” she pointed out that there was a difference between someone like Diana Ross and other potentially marketable black actresses.

“She has had the luxury of a studio behind her,” McGee said. “This is where a lot of us fell short. We all needed a certain amount of protection. But we were on our own.”

Among McGee’s other film credits are “The Lost Man,” “Detroit 9000,” “Brothers” (in which she played an activist based on Angela Davis), “Repo Man” and “To Sleep with Anger.”

In the ’80s, her career turned primarily to television.

That included playing Sister Indigo on Robert Blake‘s short-lived 1985 dramatic series “Hell Town” and playing a social worker who takes a con man played by Jimmie Walker into her home in the syndicated 1987-88 sitcom “Bustin’ Loose.”

She also played a recurring role on “L.A. Law” and appeared in several episodes of “Cagney & Lacey” as the wife of detective Mark Petrie (played by Carl Lumbly).

McGee and Lumbly were married in 1986 and had a son, Brandon, in 1988.

Born Lawrence Vonetta McGee in San Francisco on Jan. 14, 1945, she was attending what is now San Francisco State when she got involved with a local acting group.

She launched her film career in 1968 in Italy, where she appeared in the spaghetti western “The Great Silence” and played the title role in the comedy “Faustina.”

In addition to her husband and son, she is survived by her mother, Alma McGee; three brothers, Donald, Richard and Ronald McGee; and a sister, Alma McGee.

A memorial service is pending.

dennis.mclellan@latimes.com

Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Popularity: 9% [?]

By FELICIA R. LEE
Pam Grier, who manages to exude toughness and sensuality in equal measure, has also managed to embody many of the cultural shifts of the last 40 years.

Ms. Grier, at top, in “Foxy Brown” and, above, in the television series “The L Word,” with Kelly Lynch.
In her new memoir, “Foxy: My Life in Three Acts” (Hachette Book Group), Ms. Grier, 60, revisits a career that took off in the early 1970s when she became blaxploitation cinema’s first female action hero. She sprang to prominence again in Quentin Tarantino’s 1997 film, “Jackie Brown,” and she popped up in the 21st century in the groundbreaking Showtime television series “The L Word,” about the lives of lesbians.

“Foxy,” however, reveals a darker personal life, including, for the first time, the details of her sexual assault at 6. It also recounts the diagnosis of cervical cancer Ms. Grier received in her late 30s and the untimely deaths and suicides of family members and friends. There is space, too, for her romances with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (who wanted her to convert to Islam), Freddie Prinze (who battled drugs and wanted her to have his baby) and Richard Pryor (who thought she could help save him from drugs).

Why tell her story now? “I’ve had mentors who know of my legacy and family history, along with my career in surviving and falling, crawling and learning, and being very, very open and curious,” she explained. “I said, ‘If I do it, I want it to be a work of lessons learned that I can share with others.’ You seek help. You seek friendship.”

Ms. Grier, who wrote “Foxy” with Andrea Cagan, was sitting in an Upper East Side hotel suite, far from the little Colorado ranch she shares with three dogs and four horses. Her face was unlined, her body curvy rather than Hollywood thin. She laughed easily and often, despite sharing sometimes harrowing details of her life.

She grew up in Colorado, the daughter of an Air Force mechanic and a nurse. It was an era of racial segregation; the family (including two siblings) lived abroad for extended stays, but Ms. Grier considers her “rural sensibility” important to who she is. She said she was taught by her family to “sleep in a tent at night in the rain and go fish for your food in the morning.”

Life was forever altered when, left unsupervised at an aunt’s home, she was raped by two boys. After that she describes a lonely, traumatized childhood.

“I was very quiet,” Ms. Grier recalled, and she stuttered when she did talk. As a young woman, she was the victim of a date rape, she wrote, which led to years in which she tried to play down her prettiness.

“My life is probably more interesting and dangerous than some of the movies I’ve done,” she said.

She came by her steel the hard way, Ms. Grier said. And she referred to some of her biggest 1970s hits to explain how. “My aunt was Foxy Brown, and my mom was Coffy, and we were constantly struggling against disrespect,” she said.

In “Coffy” (1973) she played a nurse who turned to vigilante justice to avenge her little sister’s drug addiction. In “Foxy Brown” (1974) she fought against drugs and other ills.

Once derided as formulaic urban morality tales aimed at black audiences and featuring big helpings of white villainy, several of Ms. Grier’s blaxploitation films are now considered groundbreaking for their depictions of powerful black women.

And it took Ms. Grier’s winning combination of sex, sass and talent to pull it off, said Warrington Hudlin, a producer and the president of the Black Filmmaker Foundation. “She exists in the American imagination in a way that is permanent,” Mr. Hudlin said. “She represents a self-reliant, dynamic female figure that doesn’t have to forgo femininity for potency, for militant power.”

While the story lines were outlandish, Ms. Grier said some of her early films had their roots in the truth of urban life in that era.

“We had won so many aspects of civil rights, but we didn’t have a large enough community to lose people to gun battles and drugs,” she said. “We had to show we had a positive community, too, which was something that didn’t get on the news.”

When it comes to more personal topics, like men, Ms. Grier also aims to convey a lesson: a woman needs to love herself more than she loves a relationship.

“At some point you have to realize you will be walking away from someone you do love,” she said, describing her failed relationships. “But out of love for yourself, O.K.?” While she has never married or had children, Ms. Grier said she still fantasized about her dream wedding.

After years with few big roles, her fortunes were revived by Mr. Tarantino, an avowed fan of blaxploitation and other less-than-exalted movie genres. He took her talent global with “Jackie Brown,” an adaptation of an Elmore Leonard novel that was tailored for Ms. Grier and includes references to her earlier work.

The film showcased her acting chops and cast her in a more serious light in the film industry. “I owe him at least one child,” she said of her gratitude to Mr. Tarantino.

This year Ms. Grier joined the cast of “Smallville,” the CW science-fiction series, where she plays the brilliant covert agent Amanda Waller.

So now her fans are tweens as well as their grandparents, Ms. Grier said, and they pay attention to what she does. When she played the straight musician and club owner Kit Porter (half-sister of Bette, a lesbian) on “The L Word,” people stopped her in the street to say she helped them connect to gay family members and friends.

Now in the midst of a book tour, Ms. Grier said she felt good, and grateful. Her cancer is in remission. She is shooting a film with Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts.

Staying the course goes back to the book she calls her bible in “Foxy”: “An Actor Prepares” by Constantin Stanislavski.

“He said there’s no such thing as a small role, there’s no such thing as a small heart,” Ms. Grier said. “He said I should approach any role as if it’s my life, and that’s what I did.”

Source

Popularity: 15% [?]

Just when I thought the Internet couldn’t get any better, it went and put this video online! Kudos Mr. Internet, you put some of my favorite Blaxploitation scenes in one video!

I love these low budget movies that gave a 70s look at that people thought the inner city looked like. They are very telling of the 70s American phyche.

Popularity: 3% [?]