Kool Cats And Hip Chicks

E. Simms Campbell was one of the first commercial Black artists in the US, with a career that stretched from the early 1930s to the late 1960s.

Nathan Cliff Heard was born in Newark on Nov. 7, 1936, to Nathan E. Heard, a laborer, and Gladys Fruitt, a blues singer. He never completed high school, and always listed New Jersey State Prison in the education section of his résumé. Nathan C. Heard, a novelist, wrote realistically of prison life and the mean streets of Newark, NJ.

Whitney Elizabeth Houston
1963-2012

Born in Fayetteville, GA, actor Gary Anthony Williams attended Clayton State College. A classically trained actor, Williams honed his craft via involvement with the Georgia Shakespeare Festival, then performed in various theatrical locales including Agatha’s Dinner Theatre, The Shakespeare Tavern, and the Alliance Theatre. Williams moved into television in the late 1990s, with a guest spot on the series drama In the Heat of the Night and a small role in the Schwarzenegger thriller End of Days (1999).

Let’s not wait to honor those we love, admire, look up to and respect, in death.

Chris Munger directed this 1974 blaxploitation version of the popular skinflick Starlet!…1969. The story concerns Clara, Juanita Brown, an aspiring actress from the housing projects of Gary, Indiana, who goes to Hollywood in search of fame and fortune.

Funk saxophonist Jimmy Castor, who recorded a string of R&B hits in the 1970s with his group, the Jimmy Castor Bunch, died on Monday January 16, 2012 in Las Vegas at the age of 71 from possible heart failure.

One of the most charismatic action stars, Fred is known for coming at you hard in-your-face action. True to his image, you can find him presently doing exactly that in Down ‘N Dirty, his second in a series of films in which he stars as street-wise Dakota ‘Dak’ Smith (first starred as “Dak’ in Night Vision – which he received the Dallas Forth-Worth Film Critics Assoc. Award).

The 1970s gave birth to two of the most enduring and endearing mystery characters of all time. It was also the decade when many policemen said that the best and most realistic depiction of what it was really like in their world was being done on a weekly sitcom.

Joe Frazier’s life, in and out of the ring, was indelibly tied to the man with whom he had an often poisoned relationship – Muhammad Ali.

Ali and Frazier, who on Monday, November 7, 2011 lost his toughest fight of all to liver cancer aged 67, were at the vanguard of the heavyweight division’s heyday throughout the 1970s.

Nick Ashford, one-half of the legendary Motown songwriting duo Ashford & Simpson that penned elegant, soulful classics for Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, has died at the age of 69 from throat cancer.

Bubba Smith, an actor and former NFL player who appeared in the “Police Academy” comedy films, has died at age 66.

Peter Falk, who appeared in the crime series “Columbo” and the cult fantasy film “The Princess Bride,” has died at age 83 after battling dementia for years.

Ronald “Butch” Lewis, known in the fight industry for tenaciously landing his light heavyweight champion Michael Spinks a massive $13.5 million purse for what turned out to be a brutal, one round KO at the hands of Iron Mike Tyson, apprently suffered a massive heart attack. Lewis, age 65 and more active in recent years in the music and TV fields than in boxing, was in or around his stately home in Delaware when he went into cardiac arrest.

Today I ventured to the Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con with three goals in mind. To meet Pam Grier, Richard Roundtree and Billy Dee Williams. As my business partner and I made our trek, we talked about our continued love of the 1970′s, the films, the animation from the Saturday morning cartoons and the comics. We even discussed how this could be a small turning point in our lives as we continue to follow our passion by meeting these 1970′s film icons.

Who’s the Black private dick
That’s a sex machine to all the chicks?
(Shaft!)
You’re damn right

Who is the man
That would risk his neck for his brother man?
(Shaft!)
Can ya dig it?

I had an opportunity to meet Billy Dee Williams at Comic Con in Philly and take a picture with him. He was a extremely approachable and when I mentioned the Museum of UnCut Funk he expressed an interest in our project and wanted to know more about what we were doing.

 
Clarice Taylor, the actress and comedian best known for playing grandmothers on “The Cosby Show” and “Sesame Street,” has died at the age of 93. Taylor died of congestive heart failure in her home in Englewood, N.J., on Monday, said her son, William Taylor. During a career that spanned five decades, Taylor performed on radio and TV, in film and on stage, including in the original Broadway cast of the musical “The Wiz.”

Emmy, Tony and Oscar winning production, set and costume designer Tony Walton (All That Jazz, Mary Poppins and Broadway’s Pippin just to name a few) shared his Oscar nominated set and costume work for the 1978 film The Wiz.

 
Born in Santa Barbara, California, the 75-year-old cartoonist/animator/writer studied illustration at Art Center College of Art and Design. Floyd began his Disney career fresh out of art school, as an animator and in-betweener (an artist who creates intermediate frames for smooth transitions between two images).