Tamara Dobson: the archetype for strong black female role models

Who here remembers “Blaxploitation" films?  

As a cinematic genre, this subset of ethnocentric, low-budget 1970s action releases wasn’t particularly noteworthy, although it was historically significant for being the first box office product to specifically target an urban, African American audience and also served as major platform for several funk and soul artists.

Movies such as Shaft and Superfly won little critical acclaim within the film industry, but they did attract a new demographic to the silver screen, filled many an inner city theater on any given weekend and fostered the notion of a black hero at an important moment following the Martin Luther King Jr. assassination and the peak of the Civil Rights movement in the United States. Those two Blaxploitation films in particular also elevated the careers of musicians Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield, earning Hayes a Grammy and an Academy Award.  Mayfield's solo, “Super Fly” is ranked 69th on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.



Tamara Dobson, AKA Cleopatra Jones



Actor Richard Rountree made Shaft something of a cultural icon, and gave black men in the United States a role model to cheer for; but what about black women? If Shaft had a sister it would have been Cleopatra Jones, the bad-ass martial arts momma played by Amazonian 6-foot-2 actress/model Tamara Dobson.

Cleopatra Jones was a unique hybrid, a marriage of secret agent and funk goddess. She packed the punch and panache of James Bond with the soul and style of Dianna Ross. Beautiful yet lethal, she attracted admiration and commanded respect. Her name alone conjured images of African royalty while hinting at the every-day struggles of the average black gal on the streets.

In a time when “everybody was kung-fu fighting,” no one did it with more panache and sex appeal than Dobson. It was a bold new vision that built on the foundations created just 15 years earlier by the likes of Lena Horne and Diane Carroll, and created a whole new pop culture icon.

"With her flashy style - huge Afro, big hats, leather-trimmed fur coats - Cleopatra was, in the words of the drug traffickers she battled, '10 miles of bad road,'" Time magazine reported, upon Dobson's death in 2006 at age 59.

Dobson was no doubt the archetype for Teresa Graves’ performance in the short-lived 1974 television series, Get Christie Love.  You can bet she also inspired novelist Elmore Leonard’s character Jackie Brown in his novel, Rum Punch, which was later made into a feature length film by director Quentin Terrentino. 

The strong-black-woman persona that Dobson projected on screen as Cleopatra Jones likely later influenced the muscular aesthetic of Grace Jones, quite possibly inspired the Williams sisters of tennis fame and perhaps even gave impetus to the iron resolve of the first African American Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. It almost certainly inspired actress Pam Grier for her most recognized performance.

I could even go as far as linking the moxie of foxy Cleopatra Jones to Beyonce, Opra Winfrey or Michelle Obama. The fact is, today’s empowered black women who project unabashed confidence, independence and strength, certainly owe a debt of gratitude to the late, great Tamara Dobson.

A Fitting Tribute to William Gocher

From Nat Young to Mark Occhilupo, I’ve always had a deep respect for Australian surfers. Characters such as Mark Richards and Rabbit Bartholemew were known as “the Bronzed Aussies” in my day, a cadre of outlandish athletes from Down Under who took Hawaii’s North Shore by storm. Others such as Tommy Carroll and Gary “Kong” Elkerton continued to push the envelope in competitive wave riding, and have left a lasting legacy in the sport.

  Funny though, all of the legendary Australian watermen mentioned above would have been branded as scofflaws and petty criminals if it weren’t for the defiance of a certain newspaper editor and the spirit of public disobedience later made famous by Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Of course, many Australians are the direct descendents of felons, convicts and criminals, thus earning the self-deprecating nickname “Connies.” During the 18th and 19th centuries, large numbers of British criminals were transported to penal colonies on the Australian continent. It is rather ironic then, that stodgier elements of Victorian morality such as bans on public bathing would pervade Australian culture until the turn of the 20th Century.  

An unclad Bather: once considered a threat to public decency

In the days when Duke Kahanamoku was first learning to swim in Hawaii, daylight bathing was considered a threat to public decency and order in Australia. In fact, it was banned until 1902, when a newspaper editor by the name of William Gocher forced the issue by defying the law and bathing during daylight hours. One might call Gocher the”Ned Kelly” of costumed beach-goers. Kelly was a rebel folk hero in 19th Century Oz, sort of an Outback Jesse James. It was that sort of outlaw spirit that lead to defiance regarding a ban on “cossies” or costumes, as the Australians call their bathing suits. Authorities refused to prosecute Gocher, making him sort of a cause célèbre, or an ocean-going Lady Godiva in Australian society.

Gocher’s defiant will would ultimately open the door widely for bathing, and later surfing at Australian beaches. Unfortunately, the newer, more open attitudes toward public bathing also lead to a dramatic rise in drownings, which eventually gave rise to one of the world’s great corps of lifeguards.


Modern swimwear: Gocher's legacy


If the Australians in their Victorian modesty seemed a little more backward than the happy-go-lucky, loin cloth-clad Hawiians of Duke’s day, it would serve well to remind readers that Missionaries practically banned surfing in the Islands for the same puritanical reasons.  Travel magazine images of scantily clad wahines consorting with half-naked beach boys and frolicking in licentious repose on the sands of Waikiki raised a bellowing outcry from the crusading censors of the day.

 Swimwear and beach apparel have undergone many transformations since then, and style and taste are still debated today on beaches from Biarritz to Bikini Atoll. One can still hear the ridicule and disgust among the crowds at Windansea or Waimea Bay when a corpulent hodad in bun huggers parades his pale, flabby backside across the sand.

Serena Wilson

Serena Wilson was the godmother of belly dancing in America. She passed away in 2007 at age 73. 

For the the better part of four decades Wilson performed at major concert venues in the United States, Europe and the Middle East, bringing respectability to a tradition that was previously scorned by many as low brow or burlesque. 


The legendary Serena Wilson


 In Egypt, Wilson was revered as an "artiste". Her credentials were impressive, including numerous appearances with the New York Opera Company as lead dancer in "Aida." When the Metkal Kenawi musicians of Egypt made their only New York appearance, she was the dancer they invited to perform with them.

In her later years, Wilson had choreographed the Egyptian folkloric show at Club Ibis, a lavish Egyptian nightclub in New York. A critic with Dance Magazine once wrote that her performance was "Better than anything I saw in the Middle East."

The Village Voice,  in a review of Wilson's troupe's performance at the Lincoln Center in 2001, wrote that  "Her dancers, working those rhumba, chiftetelli, and kashlimar rhythms, showed classic Serena training -- elegant carriage, willowy arms and hips that make tiny flicks like a clock's second hand." 

Here is a poem written by Wilson to be read as a prelude to her dancing:

I am a woman, wrapped in chiffon and jewels,
Thin silks and girdle of gold. I stretch my arms...
The embrace encompasses a universe.
I can control a quiver in my hips, Tell a thousand stories with my eyes,
Skip with child-like glee, the smile of experience on my lips.
Glide in innocence, endure with age.
Spin like a dervish; undulate in sensuality...
Excite, promise, create, change, tease, mock,
Unveil my passion.
Untiringly seduce the world as I move my body, For I am a woman... I am the dancer.

 

Here is a video of Wilson dancing:

Jim Morrison and the Rock and Roll Circus

A controversial book by Sam Bernett claims that rock legend Jim Morrison died in a toilet stall at the Parisian club Rock 'n' Roll Circus, after what Bernett believes was a heroin overdose.

 

Bernett was the manager at Rock 'n' Roll Circus, a hip hangout on the Rue de Seine where celebrities of the day would rendezvous for live music, poetry readings and a taste of the 60s psychedelic scene. They say that filmmaker Roman Polanski was a regular there. So was Maryanne Faithful, a folk singer-turned actress who had earned a reputation as a muse for the Rolling Stones.

 

Jim Morrison in Paris in 1971, not long before his death.

 

Interestingly, the Stones later produced a video titled "Rock and Roll Circus." I'm not sure if there was any connection with the night club, but it's entirely possible. 

 

Anyway, according to Bernett, at approximately 1 a.m. on July 3, 1971, Morrison dropped in for a visit at the Rock and Roll Circus accompanied by two alleged drug dealers. They all disappeared and  later, a bouncer was said to have broken into a locked toilet stall to discover an unconscious Morrison. 

 

Bernett claims he summoned a doctor who was hanging out at the club to examine the Doors front man.  "When we found him dead, he had a little foam on his nose, and some blood too, and the doctor said, 'That must be an overdose of heroin,'" Bernett recalls in his book. He adds that he did not see Morrison doing any heroin that night, but notes that the singer was known to sniff the drug because he was afraid of needles.

 

Apparently, the two drug dealers insisted Morrison had only passed out, and that they carried him out of the club. Bernett says he wanted to call paramedics to the scene, but the club's owner ordered him to keep quiet to avert a scandal. I guess he sat on the truth all these years (if you believe it) and only came clean recently as he attempted to cash in on a book.

Bernett believes the dealers brought Morrison's body home and dropped it into the bathtub, a last attempt to revive him. The official story (whitewash?) is that the legendary rock martyr went to a movie in Paris, came home, listened to some records and died of heart failure in his bathtub. No autopsy was ever performed.

Homage to Vic Morrow/Artie West

I just added a Vic Morrow tribute page to my Facebook friend's list. 

 

"Vic who," you might be asking. His heyday was slightly ahead of my time. He had a breakout role in Blackboard Jungle, a 1955 release chronicling the cultural emergence of restless youth and opening the door for a young musical genre called rock n roll. But more about that later.

Vic Morrow's daughter: Jennifer Jason-Leigh

 

Morrow died in a freak accident in 1982 while on the set of Twilight Zone: the Movie, so he's probably not much of an icon among the twenty-somethings, though his daughter might be. Have you heard of Jennifer Jason-Leigh? Check out her acting versitility in the comedy The Hudsucker Proxy, and the intense drama Rush. I hear that she was also very good in The Last Exit to Brooklyn, although I didn't see that film. Anyway, I digress. Back to Vic.

 

Vic Morrow as Sgt. Saunders

 

Long before I appreciated the cultural and historical significance of his role in Blackboard Jungle, I dug Morrow's role as Sgt. Saunders in the World War II television series Combat. He had this nihilistic expression, the poker face of a platoon leader who gambled with his men's lives in the French countryside of 1944 Nazi-occupied Europe. It was a quality drama that still runs in syndications on some cable channels today.

 

A scene from the Blackboard Jungle

Ah, but the knife-wielding role of Artie West! Now that was true art. Before Artie West, teenage rebellion and juvenile delinquency weren't really a force to be reckoned with. Sure, the Bowery Boys, and maybe young Frankie Sinatra and his legion of benign bobby-soxers pre-dated Vic Morrow's fine performance. No one had begun to appreciate the impact that Elvis Presely would have, let alone fathomed a future shaped by Blackboard Jungle that would spawn the Beastie Boys or Marilyn Manson and his legion of porn starlette fans. 

 

Vic Morrow as Artie West

 

Artie West, the lugubrious gang leader, the proverbial leader of the pack who holds sway over and intimidates his peers. Artie's hatred for Mr. Dadier or any authority figure is immediate and passionate, sparked by a near rape in the school library. Remember, this was very, very edgy subject matter during President Eisenhower's first term.  

 

Another seminal film dealing with teenage angst, Rebel without a Cause, was also released in 1955. Ah, but Blackboard Jungle featured Bill Haley's hit single, "Rock Around the Clock," a song credited with ushering in the entire rock n roll era. Haley had recorded the tune a year before in 1954, but it was relegated to the B-side of an obscure 45 and really didnt' catch fire until it rolled with Blackboard Jungle's opening credits. 

 

Morrow was able to parlay his youthful tough guy image into numerous roles as robbers and hoodlums including the character "Shark" alongside Elvis Presely in the 1959 film, King Creole. He was a steady television actor throughout the 1960s and 70s before assuming his final role as Bill Connor in Twilight Zone: The Movie. 

Vic Morrow in Twilight Zone: The Movie

 

The film, which was produced by Steven Spielberg and directed by John Landis, included four vignettes. Morrow's character, the embittered Bill Connor, is introduced as an angry bigot in a bar, hurling insults at Jews, blacks and Asians. (Ironically, Morrow himself was Jewish) Connor leaves the bar and steps into a series of scenes, including: Nazi-occupied France where SS troops chase him, mistaking him for a Jew; the Jim Crow Deep South where Ku Klux Klansmen see him as black and try to lynch him; and finally .Vietnam, where he is attacked by American soldiers who think he is the enemy.

 

It was during the filming of the Vietnam sequence that Morrow was killed in a freak helicopter crash. Morrow stood in a river while film technicians fired off various pyrothechnics. The resulting flames engulfed the chopper, blinding the pilot and sending his vehicle careening out of control. Morrow was subsequently decaptitated by the rotor blade.

 

Vic Morrow's tombstone

 

The director, John Landis, delivered an awkward eulogy at Morrow's funeral which was widely criticized as callous and self-serving. According to one account, Landis said "Tragedy can strike in an instant, but film is immortal... This performance must not be lost.  It was Vic's last gift to us."

 

In a sense, I suppose that Landis was right about that.

 

A Magic Moment in 1965

December, 1965. It is the Beat Generation brain trust's last reunion at City Lights.

All the notable West Coast poets are present, Richard Brautigan, Allen Ginsberg Gary Goodrow, Robert LaVigne, Michael McClure, Lew Welch," just to name a few.


Bob Dylan has just finished a concert at the Berkeley Community Theater, and he is hiding from his fans in the basement of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's famous bookstore with McClure and Ginsberg. Are they getting high?

As a swarm of admirers begin to break through the basement door, Dylan, Ginsberg and McClure climb out a window with Robby Robertson and photographer Larry Keenan and escape down a back alley.


Safe for the moment, pausing to catch a smoke, Keenan snaps an image of this quartet of Beat icons, and the magical moment is captured for posterity.

Modigliani and Hebuterne: A Tragic Love Affair

I have always been fascinated with great artists and their muses - many of whom were great artists in their own right. Several examples come to mind: Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo; Alfred Stieglitz and Georgia O'Keeffe, and a couple I have only recently discovered - Amedeo Modigliani and Jeanne Hebuterne.

Modigliani by Hebuterne

Modigliani was the quintessential "Beautiful Loser," a dark, handsome, extremely talented, womanizing drug addict. He seemed fated to the lonely, alienated life of a tortured artist, lost amid the shallowness and illusive satisfactions of a string of short romances and one-night stands - until he met Hebuterne.

I was first exposed to Hebuterne through a certain Modigliani's portrait that mesmerized me. I googled her, took in all the information I could find and swiftly fell for her. Additional photos only strengthened and solidified my obsession with her. She was absolutely beautiful and captivating. More so than Tina Modotti in my opinion. (If you aren't familiar with Modotti, then Google her by all means. She was the epitome of burning sensuality. Edward Weston thought so, and captured her smouldering aura on film. But that's another story.)




Hebuterne by Modigliani


Hebuterne was born into a conservative Parisian family and was introduced to the art world through her brother when she was barely of age. She sat as a model for many prominent painters before striking out to be a painter herself. Eventually she met and fell in love with Modigliani, who was 15 years her senior, a struggling - some might say starving - artist. What was the attraction? I can only imagine the lure, the seduction, the sweet poison of Modigliani's artistic soul.

Against the better advice of her parents, and perhaps in conflict with her own inner voice and judgment, Hebuterne followed the path of a free spirit and ultimately stumbled into a world of misery that Kahlo and so many others follow in pursuit of a mysterious, intriguing painter surrounded by angels and demons. Hebuterne would ultimately be immortalized in over 20 Modigliani portraits, and that in itself is an amazing gift to receive from such a talented painter. Yet, the beautiful young model/painter was to be tortured in unimaginable ways by her lover's overwhelming addictions and violent outbursts.

They say that Miles Davis beat Cicily Tyson. Cher struggled for years through the dark, dingy back alleys of Gregg Allman's heroin addiction. What was it about Syd and Nancy that captured our attention and our sympathy? Could you feel Frida Kahlo's suffering captured in her brilliant canvasses? Add to this fascinating yet tragic heap, the name of Jeanne Hebuterne.




photo of Hebuterne

 After a cruel, self-destructive run, she was eventually the only one at Modigliani's side when the sickly addict died in bed at age 35. Two days later, overcome with grief, a pregnant Hebuterne committed suicide. She was only 20 years old. Hebuterne's wish was to be buried next to the very flawed man whom she loved beyond life itself.

In a final tragic act of bitterness and grief, her wealthy family ignored her wishes and interred her remains at an affluent Paris cemetary. It was several years before the family relented and placed her bones beside those of her tragic lover. Today there is a tombstone in Paris, much like Jim Morrison's - a shrine where Bohemians go at midnight to drink wine and celebrate the lives of free spirits and creative creatures, remarkable rebels who cast their lot against the winds of society and were one-by-one blown away.

Why do I empathize? Why am I drawn near to these Jackson-Pollack-like abstract human trainwrecks. Why do we stare when we drive by the horrible carnage of a highway collision? The story of Jeanne Hebuterne is like an orchid in a funeral home. A macabre yet captivating symbol of life's bittersweet sting.