Marlene Clark, Ganja & Hess and Sanford and Son star, dies at 85
Marlene Clark, the actress known for her work on such films and TV series as the 1973 cult horror movie Ganja & Hess and the popular '70s sitcom Sanford and Son, has died at 85.
Clark's friend Tamara Lynch said she died May 18 at her home in Los Angeles, per PEOPLE. A cause of death was not disclosed.
"If you knew Marlene, you knew that the one thing that she had was grit," Lynch told PEOPLE. "She was a very small-statured woman, really thin. She almost looked like a Black Polynesian, she was just so exotic. Then she had this deep, cavernous voice. When she spoke, it was such a command of attention."
Lynch continued, "She was tenacious in her love of art, film, and expression. Really, to the day she died, if she had an audition, Marlene would've gone to the audition. She would've done anything. She was one of those die-hard old-school actors, performers, Hollywood people. You do the work. You show up. You know your lines, and then you go home and you go back, and you do it the next day."
A Harlem native, Clark attended Morristown Junior College in Tennessee and City College in New York, and worked as a model before making her screen debut opposite Sidney Poitier in For Love of Ivy.
She made her television debut in a 1970 episode of The Bill Cosby Show and would go on to guest on series including The Governor & J.J., The Immortal, Bonanza, The Mod Squad, McCloud, The Rookies, and The Richard Pryor Show.
Everett Collection Marlene Clark
In the '80s, she appeared in episodes of Barnaby Jones, Flamingo Road, Highway to Heaven, and Head of the Class. But her most notable TV role was playing Janet Lawson, the girlfriend of Lamont (Demond Wilson), in six episodes of the pioneering Black sitcom Sanford and Son.
Wilson paid tribute to Clark after news of her death broke, writing on Twitter, "RIP beautiful actress Marlene Clark... It was a delight to work with you."
On the film side, Clark was perhaps best known for her titular role as Ganja Meda in Bill Gunn's influential Ganja & Hess. In the film, which has been read as an allegory about addiction, Clark played a widow who is turned into a vampire by Dr. Hess Green (Duane Jones). Ganja & Hess is regarded as a seminal Black horror film, and Spike Lee remade it in 2014 as Da Sweet Blood of Jesus.
Clark's other notable film credits included Enter the Dragon with Bruce Lee, Slaughter with Jim Brown (who died the same day as Clark), Black Mamba, The Jezebels, The Beast Must Die, Newman's Law, Lord Shango, and The Baron.
Clark was also married to fellow actor Billy Dee Williams from 1968 to 1971.
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