Yaphet Frederick Kotto was an American actor for film and television. He starred in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993–1999) as Lieutenant Al Giardello. His films include the science-fiction horror film Alien (1979), the science-fiction action film The Running Man (1987), the James Bond film Live and Let Die (1973) in which he portrayed the main villain Dr. Kananga, and the action comedy Midnight Run (1988).
Pamela Suzette Grier is an American actress and singer. Described by many as cinema's first female action star, she achieved fame for her starring roles in a string of 1970s action, blaxploitation and women in prison films for American International Pictures and New World Pictures. Her accolades include nominations for an Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Satellite Award and a Saturn Award.
Midnight Run is a 1988 American action comedy film directed by Martin Brest, written by George Gallo, and starring Robert De Niro and Charles Grodin. Yaphet Kotto, John Ashton, Dennis Farina, Joe Pantoliano, and Philip Baker Hall play supporting roles.
Across 110th Street is a 1972 American neo noir action thriller film directed by Barry Shear and starring Yaphet Kotto, Anthony Quinn, Anthony Franciosa and Paul Benjamin. The film is set in Harlem, New York and takes its name from 110th Street, the traditional dividing line between Harlem and Central Park that functioned as an informal boundary of race and class in 1970s New York City.
Robert K. Tanenbaum is an American trial attorney, novelist, and former mayor of Beverly Hills, California.
Eye of the Tiger is a 1986 American action film directed by Richard C. Sarafian, and stars Gary Busey, Yaphet Kotto, Denise Galik, Seymour Cassel, William Smith, and Judith Barsi. Busey plays a wrongfully incarcerated ex-convict who fights back against the biker gang harassing his hometown and the crooked sheriff protecting them. The film marked the beginning of the actor's transition to the action roles that would epitomize his career for much of the late 1980s and 1990s.
Black Mama White Mama, also known as Women in Chains, Hot, Hard and Mean and Chained Women, is a 1973 women in prison film directed by Eddie Romero and starring Pam Grier and Margaret Markov. The film has elements of blaxploitation.
Truck Turner, also known as Black Bullet, is a 1974 American blaxploitation film, starring Isaac Hayes and Yaphet Kotto, and directed by Jonathan Kaplan. The screenplay was written by Michael Allin, Leigh Chapman, and Oscar Williams. Hayes also scored the music for the soundtrack. The film was released by American International Pictures as a double feature with Foxy Brown.
The Star Chamber is a 1983 American crime thriller film starring Michael Douglas, Hal Holbrook,1 Yaphet Kotto, Sharon Gless, James B. Sikking, and Joe Regalbuto. The film was written by Roderick Taylor and Peter Hyams and directed by Hyams. Its title is taken from the name of the Star Chamber, a 15th−17th-century English court.
Kenneth Earl Holliday is an American actor of stage, film, and television. He is known for his role as Ben Matlock's original private investigator, Tyler Hudson, on Matlock, and as Sgt. Curtis Baker on Carter Country from 1977 until 1979. He was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award for Best Supporting Male for his performance in the film Great World of Sound.
Terror in the Aisles is a 1984 American documentary film about horror films, including slasher films and crime thrillers. The film is directed by Andrew J. Kuehn, and hosted by Donald Pleasence and Nancy Allen. The original music score is composed by John Beal.
Alfred Hitchcock Presents, sometimes called The New Alfred Hitchcock Presents, is an American television anthology series that originally aired on NBC for one season from September 29, 1985 to May 4, 1986, and on the USA Network for three more seasons, from January 24, 1987, to July 22, 1989, with a total of four seasons consisting of 76 episodes. The series is an updated version of the 1955 eponymous series.
Melvin Damski is an American director and producer of film and television.
The Park Is Mine is a Canadian-American drama television film based on the novel of the same name by Stephen Peters. The film focuses on Vietnam War veteran, Mitch, who takes forceful control of Central Park to remember those who served and died in the Vietnam War and draw attention to veterans' issues.
Friday Foster is a 1975 American blaxploitation film directed by Arthur Marks and starring Pam Grier in the title role. Yaphet Kotto, Eartha Kitt, Scatman Crothers and Carl Weathers co-starred. It is an adaptation of the 1970–74 syndicated newspaper comic strip of the same name, scripted by Jim Lawrence and illustrated by Jorge Longarón. This was Grier's final film with American International Pictures. The tagline on the film's poster is "Wham! Bam! Here comes Pam!"
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s, when the combined momentum of the civil rights movement, the black power movement, and the Black Panthers spurred African-American artists to reclaim the power of depiction of their ethnicity, and institutions like UCLA to provide financial assistance for African-American students to study filmmaking. This combined with Hollywood adopting a less restrictive rating system in 1968. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills–Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypes often involved in crime. After the race films of the 1940s and 1960s, the genre emerged as one of the first in which black characters and communities were protagonists, rather than sidekicks, supportive characters, or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s.
Paul John Perri is an American-Canadian film and television actor. Perri is best known for portraying Edwards and Skinless Parker in Hellraiser: Bloodline, Harry Hume from Chaos, and as Dr. Sidney Bloom from Manhunter.
Orville H. Hampton was an American screenwriter who worked mostly in low-budget films, particularly for producers Robert E. Kent and Edward Small. A screenplay that he and Raphael Hayes wrote for One Potato, Two Potato (1964) was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
Arthur Ronald Marks was an American film and television director, writer, producer and distributor best known for his work in the blaxploitation genre, directing films such as Bonnie's Kids, Detroit 9000, Friday Foster, Bucktown, The Monkey Hu$tle and J. D.'s Revenge. He also directed and produced numerous episodes of the American legal drama Perry Mason, as well as episodes of Starsky & Hutch, Mannix, I Spy, My Friend Tony, The Dukes of Hazzard, Steve Canyon, and Young Daniel Boone.
On the Edge is a 1986 American drama film directed by Rob Nilsson, and written by Nilsson and Roy Kissin. It stars Bruce Dern, Pam Grier, Bill Bailey, Jim Haynie, John Marley and Marty Liquori. The film was released on May 2, 1986, by Skouras Pictures.
