The Eiger Sanction and Blacula star VONETTA MC GEE, who illuminated many 1970s soul cinema flicks, dead at 65.
McGee died last week in a hospital in Berkley, California after suffering cardiac arrest.
Diagnosed at age 17 with Hodgkin’s lymphoma, McGee defied the odds to become "one of the busiest and most beautiful black actresses".
In films she starred alongside Fred Williamson in Hammer, fought the undead in Blacula and helped Richard Roundtree in Shaft in Africa.
In 1975 she crossed over to the mainstream and toplined with Clint Eastwood as a sexy double agent in The Eiger Sanction. Her verbal and sexual sparring with the laconic Eastwood remain a highlight of the spy caper.
In the 1980s McGee moved to TV with L.A. Law and appeared on Cagney & Lacey as the wife of detective Mark Petrie (played by Carl Lumbly).
Offscreen, McGee and Lumbly were married in 1986 and had a son, Brandon, in 1988.
Fred Williamson, who knew Vonetta before they costarred, recalled, "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."
Among her other film creds are The Lost Man, Detroit 9000, Brothers (where she played 1960s revolutionary Angela Davis), Repo Man and To Seep with Anger.
A memorial service is pending.
Au voir, Vonetta.
