Judy Pace death reason: Judy Pace cause of death: Films, shows, awards — all about iconic trailblazer Black woman actress
In 1968 and 1969, Pace played the ambitious, selfish and sharp-tongued Vickie Fletcher on the prime-time soap opera “Peyton Place.” This may be the first time a Black woman has appeared as an antagonist on a major television series.
Pace’s Fletcher was a character that audiences might love to hate; was different from the roles of saint or slave historically offered to Black actresses.
“I think ‘Peyton Place’ is more honest about dealing with issues that people are really going through,” Pace said in a 2012 interview with critic Roger Ebert. “You go to the movies and if you see a Black girl, she’s such a hypocrite. All the Black women in movies look like nurses, school teachers, social workers. Black women live real lives, baby; they’re not all doctors’ wives.”
Judy Lenteen Pace was born on June 15, 1942, in Los Angeles, where her parents had moved from Mississippi. He was the third of four children of aircraft mechanic Edward Pace and seamstress Luretha (Griffin) Pace, known as Kitty. His family also owned and operated Kitty’s Place, a women’s clothing store.
Pace graduated from Susan Miller Dorsey High School and studied sociology at Los Angeles City College. One of his sisters modeled for Pace and encouraged him to do the same; In 1961, she attended the Ebony Fashion Fair and later modeled for Fashion Fair Cosmetics.
She made her film debut in 1963 in William Castle’s “13 Frightened Girls,” an espionage film in which the daughter of a group of diplomats was portrayed by an international supporting cast. (Not all were accurately cast by nationality: Pace played a Liberian, for example.)
This role led to her becoming the first Black woman to sign a contract with Columbia Pictures. In 1965, she was the first Black singleton to appear on the popular television show “The Dating Game.”
Reviewing the 1968 film “Three in the Attic,” Ebert praised Pace as “a quick, funny actor who can put the edge on the line and keep a scene bright.”
In the 1970s, it appeared in blaxploitation films, a subgenre of lively, often low-budget films featuring Black protagonists, often detectives or con artists, with funk soundtracks.
Pace’s comic timing was highlighted in “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970), the first Hollywood-financed film directed by Ossie Davis, a black man. He was a sophisticated jewel thief in the 1972 heist movie “Cool Breeze” and played a model who transcends class divides and chooses brotherhood while sharing the scene with a black maid in the 1972 movie “Frogs”.
In 1971, Pace played the wife of football player Gale Sayers in the hugely popular, critically acclaimed TV movie “Brian’s Song,” about Gale Sayers’ unlikely interracial friendship with teammate Brian Piccolo, who was dying of cancer.
Pace won the NAACP Image Award for outstanding actress in a drama series for her performance as Pat Walters, part of a group of idealistic law school students, on the television show “The Young Lawyers.” In the 1970s, he also made frequent guest appearances on popular TV series such as “Bewitched,” “I Dream of Jeannie,” “Sanford and Son” and “Good Times.”
Pace married actor Don Mitchell in 1972. The couple had two daughters before divorcing in 1984. She dated baseball star Curt Flood in the 1960s. After their divorce, they reunited and married in 1986.
Flood’s legal challenge to baseball’s reserve clause helped pave the way for free agency in professional sports. His efforts angered many in the sport and essentially ended his career, preventing him from retiring with Hall of Fame-worthy statistics.
After his death in 1997, his family, including Pace, worked to keep his legacy alive and continued to push for his induction into the Hall of Fame. “I think the real problem was that it pissed off a lot of people,” Pace told The Associated Press in 2020.
