70s bombshell who married iconic singer and disappeared from Hollywood resurfaces at 76… can YOU guess who she is?
A 1970s screen siren who left showbiz at the peak of her career was spotted in Los Angeles this week at the age of 76.
He was born in Louisiana but grew up in California. She started her professional life in front of the cameras by winning a beauty contest in her youth.
On the small screen, Ozzie starred in a series that spanned comedy and drama with iconic figures such as Harriet Nelson and Jimmie ‘JJ’ Walker.
Meanwhile, on the big screen, Roman Holiday was directed by the likes of filmmaker William Wyler and Barbarella impresario Roger Vadim.
In 1978, she married a legendary singer who had a song about the revolution that remains her favorite, and then withdrew from the public eye to focus on her family life.
But she proved she’s retained her slim figure and radiant presence when she surfaced for a sunny stroll this week.
Can you guess who he is?
A 1970s screen siren who left showbiz at the peak of her career was spotted in Los Angeles this week at the age of 76.
She proved she’s maintained her slim figure and radiant presence when she surfaced for a sunny stroll this week.
He was born in Louisiana but grew up in California. She started her professional life in front of the cameras by winning a beauty contest in her youth.
She is none other than Brenda Sykes, who starred in blaxploitation classics like Black Gunn and Cleopatra Jones and left showbiz during her marriage to Gil Scott-Heron, singer of the hit song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.
Dressed casually in a white sweatshirt and purple leggings, this week she was seen heading towards her car, where a silver-haired man helped her open the door.
Although he was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1949, he was raised in Los Angeles from infancy and had just graduated from high school when he was discovered in 1967.
She came to public attention by winning a beauty pageant sponsored by NFL star turned actor Jim Brown; He later became the leading actor.
From there he made a number of guest appearances on TV shows such as the soap opera One Life to Live and The Andy Griffith Show spin-off Mayberry RFD.
He made his film debut in 1970 with The Liberation of LB Jones, a neo-noir about miscegenation in the South.
The film marked the swan song of William Wyler, whose filmography includes Ben-Hur, Funny Girl, The Letter, Wuthering Heights and Mrs. Miniver.
Her career continued in 1971 with such films as Rock Hudson and the sex comedy Pretty Maids All in a Row, directed by Angie Dickinson and Roger Vadim, the Svengali for starlets ranging from Brigitte Bardot to Jane Fonda.
She is none other than Brenda Sykes, pictured in an episode of ABC crime drama The Streets of San Francisco.
Dressed casually in a white sweatshirt and purple leggings, the woman was seen walking to her car this week and helping a silver-haired man open the door.
Sykes left show business during her marriage to Gil Scott-Heron, singer of the hit song The Revolution Will Not Be Televised; Photograph of Scott-Heron in 1985
That same year, he also appeared in the western comedy Skin Game, which boasted a cast that included James Garner and Louis Gosset Jr.
His role as a slave in this film caught the attention of Ozzie Nelson, who starred with his wife, Harriet, in the classic 1950s sitcom The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet.
Sykes auditioned for their new show, Ozzie’s Girls, in which the Nelsons play a couple of aging empty-nesters who take in two college girls as boarders.
Susan Sennett and Sykes played co-eds on the show, which ran for a single season from 1973 to 1974 under storm clouds of criticism for its blandness.
Sykes’ bookish, slightly elegant character, in particular, appealed to audiences who saw it as a whitewashed portrayal of black America.
Responding to the backlash, Sykes insisted: ‘Not everything has to be one-way. ‘People love drama and Disney together’ San Francisco Comptroller.
‘And we are all human. I always went to racially balanced schools. Of course, there are some obvious differences, but many of the experiences are the same; family situations, relationships with friends, things happening at university.’
Her film career included blaxploitation films such as 1972’s Black Gunn, which reunited her with Jim Brown, the sponsor of the beauty pageant she won in her youth.
Although he was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1949, he was raised in Los Angeles from infancy and had just graduated high school when he was discovered in 1967; pictured 1968
Her film career included blaxploitation films such as 1972’s Black Gunn, which reunited her with Jim Brown, the sponsor of the beauty pageant she won in her youth.
His pictures included the 1975 melodrama Mandingo, in which Perry King played the son of an Old South plantation owner and Sykes his sex slave.
Sykes appears opposite John Neilson in the 1971 film Honky, about an interracial high school romance between a rich black girl and a poor white boy.
She also had a supporting role in the 1973 film Cleopatra Jones; In this movie, Tamara Dobson played the role of an undercover US special agent and Shelley Winters played an evil drug lord named Mommy.
At the time, he thought the blaxploitation genre had become ‘kind of a bottomless pit’, adding: ‘you have to understand the appeal of the movies. Initially, there was a desire to see black people in films. This has never happened before, except in an occasional supporting role.’
Among his pictures was the 1975 melodrama Mandingo, in which Perry King played the son of an Old South plantation owner and Sykes his sex slave.
Sykes’ last acting role was in the 1970s comedy series Good Times, as Mandy, the girlfriend of Jimmie Walker’s lovable idiot JJ; he himself used the slogan: ‘Dy-no-mite!’
In 1978 she married Gil Scott-Heron, a singer and poet whose groundbreaking style combined jazz, R&B and rock, and who reluctantly earned him the title of ‘godfather of rap’.
He welcomed a daughter named Gia Scott-Heron with him and retired from show business to focus on private life within the family.
As early as 1974, four years before she married and left show business, she said in an interview, ‘I don’t think I want to be an actor forever.’
Although she and Scott-Heron divorced in 1987, she never returned to acting and – apart from a legal battle over her ex-husband’s estate after his death in 2011 – remained mysteriously out of the public eye for almost half a century.
