‘Sanford and Son,’ ‘Ganja & Hess’ Actress Was 85 – The Hollywood Reporter

Marlene Clark, the statuesque actress who portrayed Lamont’s fiancée on Sanford and Son and stood out in such Seventies’ movies as Ganja & Hess, Switchblade Sisters and Slaughter, has died. She was 85.

Clark died May 18 in her residence in Los Angeles, her good friend Tamara Lynch introduced. No reason for dying was revealed.

Clark additionally starred as a reptilian seductress in Roger Corman’s Night of the Cobra Woman (1972) and as one of many suspected werewolves within the British horror movie The Beast Must Die (1974), and she 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 body of work also included Black Mamba (1974), Newman’s Law (1974), Lord Shango (1975) and The Baron (1977), the place she appeared reverse her Beast Must Die onscreen husband, Calvin Lockhart.

In the surreal Ganja & Hess (1973), directed by Bill Gunn, Clark sparkled as a widow named Ganja who’s was a vampire by Dr. Hess Green (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 Film Festival that 12 months.

“There are so many levels to her personality,” she stated of her character in a 2000 Temple of Schlock interview. “She’s such a collection of contradictions. Playing that part 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.

Born in Harlem on Dec. 19, 1937, Clark usually spent her summers in West Virginia, the birthplace of her mom.

She attended Morristown Junior College in Tennessee and City College 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 industrial in that — and Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), co-written by Gunn.

Gunn employed her for his directorial debut with Stop! (1970), however the movie was given an X ranking, shelved by Warner Bros. and not seen for years.

“Most of the movies I starred in didn’t come out when they were supposed to or never came out at all — and if the movies aren’t going to be released, the studios aren’t going to do anything to promote them,” she stated. “So you miss out on all that publicity that can lead to other jobs.”

Clark, although, managed to seek out work on episodes of Marcus Welby, M.D., Bonanza, Mod Squad, McCloud, The Rookies, Barnaby Jones, Flamingo Road, Highway to Heaven and Head of the Class earlier than leaving performing within the late Nineteen Eighties.

While nonetheless performing, she opened her personal clothes retailer on Melrose Avenue within the ’80s and then turned the supervisor of Hal’s Bar & Grill in Venice Beach.

“For 15 years she curated a bustling restaurant scene where underground artists mingled with locals and the stars of film and television,” Lynch stated. “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 style was impeccable. She loved fashion, food and acting. Her large, full laugh that could fill a room will be missed. She leaves behind friends and family that will forever be grateful for her grace, love and beautiful heart. Marlene was one of our finest examples of Black beauty.”

She was the second spouse of actor Billy Dee Williams (they had been married from 1968-71), and they appeared collectively within the 1970 NBC telefilm Lost Flight.