Rumors,feuds,and scandals from Old Black Hollywood

get these nets

get these nets

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Dirty D said:
I read Bobby's book, and just bought Mooney's. The iBooks free sample ends with Pryor convincing mooney to stick around while he drinks and does rails, telling everyone "I get Mooney's share!" since Paul stays sober. Mooney observes of Pryor: something is bothering him, something deep down at the root of his soul.
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Not a spoiler, but his thoughts on meeting Pryor and such. I think he looks back, after knowing him for decades and picks up things that he might have missed when they were happening.

If you caught prime Mooney , Race album era, you'll love the book.
 
Sunalmighty

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Dirty D said:
I read Bobby's book, and just bought Mooney's. The iBooks free sample ends with Pryor convincing mooney to stick around while he drinks and does rails, telling everyone "I get Mooney's share!" since Paul stays sober. Mooney observes of Pryor: something is bothering him, something deep down at the root of his soul.
Click to expand...
:dead:
 
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  1. 27bed5f227181b0b0c2de13011abeb03.jpg


    "My friends admit I am black, beautiful and sometimes bytchy, but only when the situation calls for it. If like were a painting I'd be in the middle with a cynical little smile on my face and Hollywood in the background. My name is Dorothy Jean dikkerson. If the name isn't familiar to you, my face and figure probably are. I've appeared in a number of 'black' motion pictures -- blaxploitation films some people call them -- and my star is definitely on the rise."

    So begins Inside Black Hollywood, the first published novel by actress Carol Speed, who starred in THE MACK and a half-dozen other B-movies back in the early '70s, but is mostly known these days for being mentioned in a Quentin Tarantino script (TRUE ROMANCE).

    Like so many other African-American actresses of the period, she never got the chance to nab a really good role in a quality motion picture; take away the cool soundtrack, the strong performances, and all the hip dialogue, and THE MACK is a big, fat, funky lemon -- but as a wise man once said, "When you're given a lemon, make lemonade," and Speed really stirs up an icy cold pitcher of the stuff in Inside Black Hollywood. A fictionalized account of the making of THE MACK -- it's called THE CHANCE here, with Ms. Speed telling the whole sordid story through her Dorothy Jean dikkerson persona -- Inside Black Hollywood drops its readers headfirst into the mire of the '70s exploitation movie scene and makes them swim with the sharks for 250 pages.

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    Sure, all the names have been changed to protect the innocent (as well as the guilty, the stoned, and the just-plain-stupid), but you won't need more than your two eyes and a copy of THE MACK to figure out who's who. First and foremost, there's arrogant leading man Henry Worth (Max Julien?), a borderline sociopath scheming to get Dorothy Jean fired from the film so his girlfriend -- bytchy actress Lisa McLaine (Vonetta McGee?)
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    -- can get the role instead. Next on Speed's shyt list is producer Gerald Goldfarb (Harvey Bernhard?), who overestimates Worth's box-office worth and insists on kissing his ass instead of Dorothy Jean's (Bernhard also produced Julien and McGee's THOMASINE AND BUSHROD a year later). Then there's the director, Mark Katz (Michael Campus?), who'd rather bone every actress on the set than make a halfway coherent film.
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    Oh, and let's not forget the pathetic, self-pitying starlet Tanya Stevens (Annazette Chase?), who screwed Mark to get a part in the movie -- a part that's getting smaller and smaller with every passing day -- and out-of-control comedian Bubba Johnson (Richard Pryor?), who's on the skids because he told one too many "big dikk" jokes in front of little old white ladies in Las Vegas and got his ass kicked out of town by the Mob.

    And in the middle of it all is Dorothy Jean dikkerson, our lovely heroine and God's gift to bargain basement cinema, who proves to be almost as obnoxious and egomaniacal as the others. When she isn't fussing over her wardrobe and fighting with her costars, she's either shoveling coke up her nose by the kilo or bytching endlessly about her shytty personal life and alienating everybody around her. Somehow, she manages to tear herself away from the mirror long enough to hook up with Fred Sullivan -- underworld figure, player extraordinaire, and one of the shady Sullivan brothers, who are putting up the money to make the film. Fred's character is based on Frank D. Ward, one of the Ward brothers, who financed most or all of THE MACK; he even appears in the film as himself, during the Players' Ball scene (he's the first runner-up after Goldie for the "Player of the Year" award). Speed obviously fell head over heels in love with Frank Ward, judging by the way Dorothy Jean literally (and repeatedly) soaks her panties at the mere mention of Fred Sullivan's name. If you remember the dedication that appears at the beginning of THE MACK ("In memory of a MAN -- Frank D. Ward"), you'll know exactly where their relationship is headed.

    "Write about what you know" is the advice every well-established author hands out free of charge to the next generation of aspiring writers, and Speed wisely chose the world of blaxploitation moviemaking as the backdrop for her first writing effort. It's unfortunate, though, that she didn't shoot for a straight "making-of" book instead of a novel. There simply isn't enough story here (or a strong enough conclusion) to make for a satisfying 250-page work of fiction – which is understandable, since this isn't fiction at all. It's the truth, reported seven years later from inside the Hall of Mirrors – a broadcast from a parallel universe – a costume ball at Carol Speed's pad – a painful part of her life, presented as supermarket pulp fiction – but above all else, it's therapy.

    "When I came to Hollywood everything began to happen for me almost immediately," Speed told Black Stars magazine in 1980. "I was doing one film after the other and my career was moving forward at an extremely fast pace. Then all of a sudden this all ended. I must confess that much of it was my fault, because I committed several acts that contributed greatly to it."     Dorothy Jean's behavior during the shooting of THE CHANCE certainly backs this up, but the loss of Frank D. Ward -- more than any bridge burning that may have occurred during the making of THE MACK -- was most likely what led Speed to start writing Inside Black Hollywood in 1974, under the title Dorothy Jean dikkerson – I Thought You Knew! That same year, she had starring roles in ABBY and BLACK SAMSON, and then… nothing. She dropped out of the business and moved in with fading rocker Sly Stone, bringing only the clothes on her back and her unfinished manuscript. "For the most part, we stayed high from one day to the other," she admitted to Black Stars when asked about this period in her life. "Time was of little importance, because one day was like the next one. I did absolutely nothing." She eventually wandered out of Sly's compound and found her way back to her parents' home in San Jose, where she sobered up and got her head together before returning to Los Angeles to finish her novel (probably in late 1978, since Dorothy Jean mentions Chaka Khan's "I'm Every Woman" at one point). Around this time, she also appeared in her last film to date, the Rudy Ray Moore jaw-dropper DISCO GODFATHER (1979).

    Speed may have been a star on the rise when she made THE MACK in 1973, but by the time Holloway House published her book seven years later, her acting career was finished and the "Black Hollywood" of the title was just a memory. A rumor in early 1997 had her joining two of her costars from THE BIG BIRD CAGE -- Pam Grier and Sid Haig -- in JACKIE BROWN, but the reunion never happened. She did contribute to the Tarantino-backed What It Is! What It Was! blaxploitation book in 1998, but was noticeably absent from the special edition DVD of THE MACK a few years later. The whacked-out, paranoid bulletins that were emanating daily from her MySpace page earlier this year seemed to be written by a person who either takes too much of the wrong kind of medication or not enough of the right. That's a shame, because Speed's a strong writer, and Inside Black Hollywood -- when recognized as a work of nonfiction -- is a fascinating and important contribution to B-movie history.

    TEMPLE OF SCHLOCK: INSIDE BLACK HOLLYWOOD by Carol Speed

    On Spike Lee and Pam Grier

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    I recently rented a copy of The Big Bird Cage. Watching Pam Grier and D'Urville Martin brought back a few memories.
    Even though I was in The Big Bird Cage with Pam Grier, I never actually conversed with her. We were on the same floor at the InterContinental Hotel in Manila. Yet, Pam had difficulty interfacing with myself, and another black actress working on a different film.

    She appeared to be friendlier with the white actresses on The Big Bird Cage set. However, it could have been that I didn't sun at the pool. They were tanning for the nude shower scene. My character wasn't written to reveal flesh.

    Pam Grier never joined us actresses for any of Manila's fancy parties, or fine dining, or to go dancing at the Third Eye.

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    I decided it was because of Sam Arkoff. It was rumored that she had gone to Hong Kong with him. Supposedly, he bought her an expensive Piaget watch. Also, that he had taken her to the Cannes Film Festival right before the filming of The Big Bird Cage. So, I came to think of her as a black Greta Garbo -- very secretive.

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    While the rumors may or may not be true, I found out that it was Sid Haig that she spent most of her Manila time with.

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    While on the set of Jackie Brown, it was the day when Pam wasn't shooting. Was she spending her days off with Sid Haig again? After all, he was staying at a hotel in Hermosa Beach.Although on that sun shiny day, I felt great. I had on my favorite black knit Gucci suit. My body felt nice and tight from the exercise classes in Palm Springs. Quentin Tarantino told me I looked good. I chatted with Mario Van Peebles (he happened to be jogging on the beach); shared a lunch table and conversation with Samuel L. Jackson; rehearsed with Robert DiNero, but at the last minute, Quentin decided not to use me. I made money off of Jackie Brown, so I'm constantly promoting it.

    Ironically, after two movie sets, on two different continents, I've never conversed with Pam Grier. How unfortunate, since Vinetta Mcgee, Diahann Carroll, Brenda Sykas, Tamara Dobson, Judy Pace, and Jeanne Bell and I were able to converse and share a few good times together.

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    D'Urville Martin was a good friend. As you well know, he had an alcohol problem. He truly loved his wife Lillian and their two children, so he never drove a car. He had a tremendous fear that he'd wreck, and they would lose their comfortable home.

    D'Urville was always telephoning myself and others in the Hollywood community to hang out with him. He loved parties and a celebrity spot called Joe Allen's. D'Urville's friends helped him to enjoy a night life he wouldn't have had. His wife worked for American Airlines, and she was home every night by ten.

    During the many years that D'Urville and I were friends, he never gossiped. He always talked about the next movie or party that he thought was a splash.

    When D'Urville died, Angelus Funeral Home in Los Angeles was packed with celebrities.

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    I know D'Urville Martin never said, "When The Mack was finished, Max Julian and Richard Pryor cried at the screening because The Mack was so awful." It's a bald face lie that Spike Lee has put out in the media. Spike Lee is so unsure of his directing, that he felt the need to attack other black artists through a dead person.

    Carol Speed, 2001
 
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Ziggiy said:
Jackie and the other brothers once locked Michael into a hotel room with two hookers. Michael wasn't having it and after about an hour the brothers opened the door to discover Michael reading the Bible to the two hookers.
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Yees Michael was out here saving hoes before it became popular. True trendsetter :banderas:
 
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