For more clips like this, and a most enjoyable guide to pop culture, visit the blog for the NYC cult cable-access show Media Funhouse, located here:
www.mediafunhouse.blogspot.com
All Hail Cleopatra! Everyone goes on and on about Pam Grier. Well, Pam certainly was the central female figure in the blaxploiation era, but there was one woman who could've always kicked her butt, and I do mean literally, and that woman was Tamara Dobson. A 6'2" model-turned-actress who actually
did study karate, Dobson will always be enshrined in movie history for one role, Cleopatra Jones, that she played in two pretty mediocre action flicks, "Cleopatra Jones" (1973) and "Cleopatra Jones and the Casino of Gold" (1975) starring Funhouse interview subject Stella Stevens as a villainous bitc
h who tangles with Tamara before the picture is over (Ms. Stevens recounted to us how much fun she had doing her own stunts with Ms. Dobson in their final "duel"). I could've offered up a scene or two from either of those memorable shit-kickers, but thought it was more important to show that Ms. Dob
son infiltrated the consciousness of a later generation of exploitation addicts like myself with an appearance in the wondrously depraved (but decently budgeted, considering) women-in-prison bliss called "Chained Heat" (1983). It's the film that firmly established Linda Blair as an exploitation star
("Born Innocent" no more). The cast is a truly dazzling array of name performers, with Stella Stevens as the uncaring, corrupt "captain" of the prison, John Vernon ("Dean Wormer" from "Animal House") as the warden, the always invincible Henry Silva as a gangster, Teutonic wondergirl Sybil Danning a
s the racist "Queen Bee" who takes on Tamara in a knife-fight, and Carole Ita White ("Rosie Greenbaum" from Laverne and Shirley, Jesse White's daughter!) as a tough chick who Tamara literally just knees outta the way. The picture is a sleazy blast from start to finish, and the statuesque (you didn't
think I'd get through an entire piece on her without using that word, did you?) Ms. Dobson was one key reason. Ms. Dobson died at 59, from multiple sclerosis and pneumonia. She remains an icon, though, and will live on as long as people admire no-nonsense Afros, dazzling primary-colored ensembles,
and dominant women who can take on and vanquish several men at once (and Shelley Winters, but we won't go into that).

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