Judy Pace, ‘Brian’s Song’ Actress Blaxploitation Film Star, Passes Away At 83

Judy Pace, ‘Brian’s Song’ Actress Blaxploitation Film Star, Passes Away At 83

Veteran actress and model Judy Pace — known for her roles in 1970s Blaxploitation films and classic television — has passed away at 83.

Pace’s daughters, Shawn Pace Mitchell and actress Julia Pace Mitchell, announced the news, revealing their mother “died peacefully in her sleep” on Wednesday while visiting family in Marina Del Rey.

Born June 15, 1942, in Los Angeles, Pace began her career as a model and became Ebony Fashion Fair’s youngest model in 1961 before transitioning into acting.

She made her onscreen debut in William Castle’s 1963 Cold War spy film 13 Frightened Girls, a role that launched her career and made her the first Black woman contracted at Columbia Studios. Throughout the 1960s, she appeared on television shows including I Spy, Batman, Bewitched, Days of Our Lives, The Flying Nun, The Mod Squad, Tarzan, and Peyton Place.

Pace later won an NAACP Image Award for Best Actress for her role as Pat Walters on the ABC drama The Young Lawyers, which aired from 1969 to 1971. In the 1970s, she starred in Blaxploitation films including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and The Slams (1973), and portrayed the wife of football legend Gale Sayers in the acclaimed TV movie Brian’s Song (1971).

Outside of acting, Pace was also a philanthropist who co-founded the Kwanza Foundation in 1971 with Nichelle Nichols, supporting Black women working in film and providing scholarships to minority students pursuing careers in the arts. She is survived by daughters Shawn Pace Mitchell and Julia Pace Mitchell, grandson Stephen Lamar Hightower III, son-in-law Otto Strong, and other family members. Her family has asked that donations be made to the NAACP in her honor in lieu of flowers.