Range on Harlem

Herb Jeffries, Hollywood’s first black singing cowboy, has died of heart failure at the age of 100. Jeffries made movie history as the black Roy Rogers, as a singing cowboy with a Clark Gable mustache and a white hat – some clichés know no racial lines – in several low-budget 1930s Westerns with all-black casts, including Harlem Rides the Range and The Bronze Buckaroo, and he was a prominent part of Rhythm Rodeo. Jeffries, who had grown up on a farm, came up with the idea after seeing The Terror of Tiny Town, the all-midget Western and decided that niche oaters was the wave of the future. He later performed as a baritone with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with his biggest hit being "Flamingo," which sold in the millions long before million-selling recordings were commonplace. Jeffries was largely forgotten until a 1992 retrospective at the Gene Autry Museum, the discovery of several long-list prints of his films and noted film preservationist Mario Van Peebles’ use of clips from Jeffries’ films in his 1993 movie Posse.

Range on Harlem

Herb Jeffries, Hollywood’s first black singing cowboy, has died of heart failure at the age of 100. Jeffries made movie history as the black Roy Rogers, as a singing cowboy with a Clark Gable mustache and a white hat – some clichés know no racial lines – in several low-budget 1930s Westerns with all-black casts, including Harlem Rides the Range and The Bronze Buckaroo, and he was a prominent part of Rhythm Rodeo. Jeffries, who had grown up on a farm, came up with the idea after seeing The Terror of Tiny Town, the all-midget Western and decided that niche oaters was the wave of the future. He later performed as a baritone with the Duke Ellington Orchestra, with his biggest hit being "Flamingo," which sold in the millions long before million-selling recordings where commonplace. Jeffries was largely forgotten until a 1992 retrospective at the Gene Autry Museum, the discovery of several long-list prints of his films and noted film preservationist Mario Van Peebles’ use of clips from Jeffries’ films in his 1993 movie Posse.

Off the Dolemite

Rudy Ray Moore, stand-up comedian turned blaxploitation sex machine, has died at the age of 81. Most of Moore’s best material didn’t reach a mass market because it made Redd Foxx look like Rita Rudner and came in album sleeves feature naked pictures of him and multiple ladies, and was generally hidden behind record store counters in plain brown wrappers. His biggest hit was Dolemite, about a framed man re-entering his life after doing time, which the New York Times called the “Citizen kane of kung fu pimping movies.” Moore lives on in the music of Dr. Dre, Big Daddy Kane and 2 Live Crew and many others who sampled his songs and routines. Snoop Dogg wrote in the liner notes of the 2006 release of the soundtrack to Dolemite that “Without Rudy Ray Moore, there would be no Snoop Dogg, and that’s for real.”

Superfly Away Home

Ron O'Neal, who showed that a 401k isn't the only way to plan for retirement as drug dealer Youngblood Priest in the blaxploitation flick Superfly, died of cancer at the age of 66. Somehow the idea of a rich retired drug dealer struck some as being the wrong message to send, and the sequel, Superfly TNT, flopped, returning O'Neal to the obscurity from which he came.

Die Blacula, Die

In the wake of the deaths of some giants of entertainment, another passing of a long-in-the-tooth actor went overlooked. William Marshall, best known for playing Blacula, a black vampire, in a pair of blaxploitation films, died of Alzheimer's Disease this week at the age of 78. Marshall preferred his stage career, with meatier roles he could sink his teeth into, including Frederick Douglass and Othello. Fangs for the memories, Mr. Marshall.