Filed under: Movies, Television, News, Celeb Updates

Vonetta McGee, an actress who scaled the ranks of Black Hollywood during blaxploitation film era of the 1970s, passed away after experiencing cardiac arrest and being on life support for two days. She was 65, though some have her year of birth listed as 1940.

McGee appeared opposite Fred Williamson in the black action movie ‘Hammer’ in 1972, and had starring roles in the crime-drama ‘Melinda’ and the popular horror film ‘Blacula.’

Los Angeles Times movie reviewer once considered McGee “one of the busiest and most beautiful black actresses.”

The San Francisco native also appeared with Richard Roundtree in ‘Shaft in Africa’ (1973), and co-starred with her lover, Max Julien, in ‘Thomasine & Bushrod’ (1974).McGee also appeared with Clint Eastwood in the 1975 action-thriller ‘The Eiger Sanction,’ which was considered a coup for a black actress during that period.

“I was pleased to see her get a role with Clint Eastwood,” Williamson told the Los Angeles Times. “Not many black actors had that opportunity to be in a movie where color doesn’t matter.”

“Vonetta McGee was like a lot of actors and actresses at that time, like myself, Jim Brown, Richard Roundtree, Billy Dee Williams and Pam Grier, in that we had more talent than we were allowed to show because everything was perceived as a black project. Once they categorize you, your marketability becomes limited,” he added.

Known to be outspoken herself, McGee didn’t care too much for the “blaxploitation” label that was attached to many of the films of her heyday. The label, she said, was used “”like racism, so you don’t have to think of the individual elements, just the whole. If you study propaganda, you understand how this works.”

On a segment of ‘Soul Train’ in 1974, McGee joked that she had to go through a “lot of pain” to get her acting career started. In actuality, she attended San Francisco State college when she got involved with a local acting group. McGee launched her film career in 1968 in Italy, where she debuted in the spaghetti western ‘The Great Silence’ and played the title role in the comedy ‘Faustina.’

While starring in several episodes of the 1980s drama series ‘Cagney & Lacey,’ alongside Carl Lumbly, McGee fell in love with the dashing actor.

“I still remember the first day she came on the set — it was August 21,1984 — and we were scheduled to do a bedroom scene,” Lumbly reflected in a 1989 Ebony magazine profile on celebrity couples. “Later, when we left the set I realized we were holding hands … We married two years later.”

The couple had a son, Brandon, in 1988.

According to family spokeswoman Kelley Nayo, McGee had been diagnosed with Hodgkin’s lymphoma at age 17, but her July 9 death was not related to the disease.

In addition to her husband and son, she is survived by her mother, Alma McGee; three brothers, Donald, Richard and Ronald McGee; and a sister, Alma McGee.

“She was a brilliant actor, with a distinctive style and grace,” Pam Grier told BV Newswire upon hearing the death of McGee’s death. “I hope everyone revisits her films and enjoy. I wish peace and love to Carl, her husband her son and and her family.”

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Filed under: Music, Movies, Interviews, Celeb Updates

Entering this weekend as the #1 movie at the box office is ‘Despicable Me,’ and one of the highlights of the 3D animated film is the music score, which was composed by recording artist, producer, musician and fashion designer Pharrell Williams.

The Grammy Award-winning artist is making his debut in the film world from behind the scenes. “All my life I’ve watched cartoons; I love cartoons,” the Virginia native behind hit songs by Snoop Dog, Gwen Stefani, Beyonce, Jay-Z and Mariah Carey stated.

‘Despicable’ centers around a criminal mastermind using a trio of orphan girls as pawns for a grand scheme. He finds himself profoundly changed by the growing love between them.

We caught up to the hip-hop maestro recently. Below are excerpts from the conversation.

What’s the difference between making music for whatever concept you have, producing somebody else, and doing it for a movie.

PW: When you’re doing it for someone else, I am mainly looking at the person judging what they may need, trying to find the holes in the voice, and most of the time there usually is a hole just because they’d just be wrapping up the album. So we find the hole, and instead of patching it we try to use that hole as the inspiration to fill it and to make something different and take it to the next level.

With a song, there’s usually about 10 basic song structures; with this there’s no structure at all. There are no parameters; you’re only really answering to the aesthetic and what is being shown and what the director wants to be articulated at that moment.

How did you basically decided to do this project?

PW: I was bugging music supervisor Kathy Nelson because she had awarded a job to Jack Johnson for Curious George and I thought he had done such an amazing job so I was like, “Man, I’d do anything for a movie. She said that she would try and would let me know when the next concept came about like that, and it did. So once it did I just jumped in and I threw caution to the wind and I gave it everything that I could.

What were the challenges?

PW: I don’t believe in challenges, I believe in lessons and just learning as much as you can. That’s how I was raised in high school. We were there to learn; we didn’t have time to talk about how hard it was. You either get this amazing gift called education or you sit home and complain with the bums. Seize your opportunities.

This movie is, as you say, very funny and entertaining, but it does center around a topic that’s very serious — adoption. Do you have thoughts on that?

PW: It’s a very interesting concept and I feel like if a person has the time it’s something that in the bigger picture of humanity it would be nice for everyone who could afford to do it and who has the time and the will to educate, to invest in a child, yeah it would be very interesting. But you’ve got to have that time; you’ve got to have time to do stuff like that. You’ll be robbing a child of a better experience if you don’t have the time. But to each his own.

Take me through a day when you’re sitting working on writing for film — what is the process like?

PW: Well, you concentrate more on where the emotion is going. I’m there to fill in the gaps between what the director is conveying, what the scene is suggesting, and there’s the third element of the sound and where it helps to contour to and parallel the director’s vision. That’s my job mainly. – with Brad Balfour

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