Marlene Clark, the statuesque actress who portrayed Lamont’s fiancée on Sanford and Son and stood out in such Nineteen Seventies’ movies as Ganja & Hess, Switchblade Sisters and Slaughter, has died. She was 85.
Clark died Could 18 in her house in Los Angeles, her good friend Tamara Lynch introduced. No reason behind loss of life was revealed.
Clark additionally starred as a reptilian seductress in Roger Corman’s Evening of the Cobra Girl (1972) and as one of many suspected werewolves within the British horror movie The Beast Should Die (1974), and she or he was an early sufferer within the Larry Hagman-directed Beware! The Blob (1972).
Clark performed John Saxon‘s secretary in Enter the Dragon (1973), starring Bruce Lee, and her big-screen physique of labor additionally included Black Mamba (1974), Newman’s Regulation (1974), Lord Shango (1975) and The Baron (1977), the place she appeared reverse her Beast Should Die onscreen husband, Calvin Lockhart.
Within the surreal Ganja & Hess (1973), directed by Invoice Gunn, Clark sparkled as a widow named Ganja who’s became a vampire by Dr. Hess Inexperienced (Duane Jones), an anthropologist turned immortal bloodsucker. He finally provides up that lifestyle, however she troopers on. The film performed as the one American entry within the Critics Week sidebar on the Cannes Movie Competition that 12 months.
“There are such a lot of ranges to her persona,” she mentioned of her character in a 2000 Temple of Schlock interview. “She’s such a set of contradictions. Taking part in that half was very rewarding.”
Clark portrayed a authorities agent within the Jim Brown-starring Slaughter (1972) and Muff, the chief of an all-female Black gang aiming to derail murderous drug sellers, in Switchblade Sisters (1975), directed by Jack Hill.
She then recurred as Janet Lawson, the love curiosity of Demond Wilson’s character, on six episodes of NBC’s Sanford and Son from 1976-77. Lamont’s pop, Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx), doesn’t approve of them getting engaged at first, however he comes round.
Marlene Clark with Calvin Lockhart in 1974’s ‘The Beast Should Die’
Courtesy Everett Assortment
Born in Harlem on Dec. 19, 1937, Clark typically spent her summers in West Virginia, the birthplace of her mom.
She attended Morristown Junior Faculty in Tennessee and Metropolis Faculty in New York and labored as a mannequin earlier than making her movie debut in For Love of Ivy (1968), starring Sidney Poitier.
Clark adopted with elements in John Schlesinger’s Midnight Cowboy (1969), Robert Downey Sr.’s Putney Swope (1969) — she was a topless flight attendant in a spoof of an airline business in that — and Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), co-written by Gunn.
Gunn employed her for his directorial debut with Cease! (1970), however the movie was given an X ranking, shelved by Warner Bros. and never seen for years.
“Many of the motion pictures I starred in didn’t come out after they had been alleged to or by no means got here out in any respect — and if the films aren’t going to be launched, the studios aren’t going to do something to advertise them,” she mentioned. “So that you miss out on all that publicity that may result in different jobs.”
Clark, although, managed to seek out work on episodes of Marcus Welby, M.D., Bonanza, Mod Squad, McCloud, The Rookies, Barnaby Jones, Flamingo Street, Freeway to Heaven and Head of the Class earlier than leaving appearing within the late Nineteen Eighties.
Whereas nonetheless appearing, she opened her personal clothes retailer on Melrose Avenue within the ’80s after which grew to become the supervisor of Hal’s Bar & Grill in Venice Seashore.
“For 15 years she curated a bustling restaurant scene the place underground artists mingled with locals and the celebrities of movie and tv,” Lynch mentioned. “She had a imaginative and prescient of culinary excellence coupled with dynamic skilled service and would lay out the blueprint for the glamorous L.A. restaurant scene brilliantly casted along with her discerning eye.
“Marlene’s type was impeccable. She beloved style, meals and appearing. Her massive, full giggle that would fill a room might be missed. She leaves behind family and friends that can without end be glad about her grace, love and exquisite coronary heart. Marlene was one among our most interesting examples of Black magnificence.”
She was the second spouse of actor Billy Dee Williams (they had been married from 1968-71), and so they appeared collectively within the 1970 NBC telefilm Misplaced Flight.
