Judy Pace, ‘Brian’s Song,’ ‘Peyton Place’ actress, dies at 83

Judy Pace, a pioneering television and film actress during the 1960s and ’70s who starred in “Brian’s Song“ and ”Peyton Place,“ died on March 11. She was 83.

The actress’ daughters, Shawn Pace Mitchell and Julia Pace Mitchell, said in a statement that Pace died in her sleep, The New York Times reported. She died while visiting family members in Marina del Ray, California.

“Widely regarded as one of Hollywood’s most strikingly beautiful and elegant performers during her prime, Pace built a career that helped open doors for Black actresses in mainstream entertainment,” the statement read.

Pace played the wife of Chicago Bears running back Gale Sayers in the 1971 television movie “Brian’s Song,” a film that explored the interracial friendship between Sayers and fellow teammate Brian Piccolo, who was dying of cancer.

Before that, she was cast in the role of the ambitious, caustic Vickie Fletcher on “Peyton Place,” the Times reported. She appeared in 15 episodes from 1968 to 1969, according to IMDb.com.

Her role was a departure from many roles given to Black women on television during the 1960s. She was a manipulative, selfish antagonist, a sharp contrast to roles played by Diahann Carroll (a nurse on “Julia”) or Gail Fisher (a secretary on “Mannix.”)

“I think ‘Peyton Place’ is more honest in dealing with the sorts of problems people are really into,” Pace said in an interview with the critic Roger Ebert in 2012, according to the Times. “You go to the movies and if you see a Black girl, she’s a goody-two-shoes. All the Black women in the movies seem to be nurses, schoolteachers, social workers. Black women lead real lives, baby; they’re not all doctors’ wives.”

Pace would enhance that vibe with her roles in blaxploitation films -- low-budget movies during the 1970s that usually featured Black protagonists who were detectives or hustlers, the Times reported.

She would appear in “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970), “Cool Breeze” (1972) and “Frogs” (1972).

Judy Lenteen Pace was born in Los Angeles on June 15, 1942, Deadline reported. She became a model and was Ebony Fashion Fair’s youngest one in 1961.

She made her screen debut in the 1963 film, “13 Frightened Girls,” an espionage movie. Her performance in that role allowed Pace to become the first Black woman under contract at Columbia Pictures, the Times reported. In 1965, she was the first Black bachelorette featured on “The Dating Game.”

Pace starred as Pat Walters, a Boston-based attorney, in 25 episodes of “The Young Lawyers,” Entertainment Weekly reported.

She won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Drama Series in 1970, according to the Times.

According to Deadline, Pace burnished her television résumé with roles on episodes of “I Spy,” “Batman,” “Bewitched,” “Days of Our Lives,” “Sanford and Son,” “Good Times,” “The Flying Nun” and “The Mod Squad.”

Pace married actor Don Mitchell in 1972, the Times reported. The couple had two daughters before divorcing in 1984.

In 1986, Pace married former baseball star Curt Flood, whom she had dated during the 1960s. She worked hard to get Flood, who challenged baseball’s reserve clause in court, inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame after his death in 1997.

“I think the holdup is that he got on a lot of people’s nerves,” Pace told The Associated Press in 2020.

Pace founded the Kwanza Foundation in 1971 with Nichelle Nichols, Deadline reported. The organization supported Black women working in film and provided scholarships to minority students pursuing careers in the arts.

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