#Zara Cully

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Sugar Hill (1974)

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Zara Frances Cully (January 26, 1892 – February 28, 1978)

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The beautiful actress Zara Frances Cully aka Mother Jefferson 🖤🖤

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Zara Cull

Remembering Zara Cully Brown (January 26, 1892 – February 28, 1978) Actress. Born in Worcester, Massachusetts she did not come into acting until quite late. She made her television debut in "Run For Your Life" in 1966 at the age of 74. She appeared in character roles through out the 1960 and 1970 in such television series as "Night Gallery," "Days of Our Live," and "The Mod Squad." Her best remembered role, however, was that of Mother Jefferson who was introduced in a 1974 episode of "All in the Family." She reprised the role once more before the spinoff series, "The Jeffersons" saw her as a recurring character through some thirty episodes from 1975 through 1977; her last appearance was the episode "The Last Leaf." She succumbed to cancer the following year at the age of 86. She was sometimes credited as Zara Cully Brown

[lboogie1906]

Zara Frances Cully (January 26, 1892 – February 28, 1978) was an actress. She was known for her role as Olivia 'Mother Jefferson' Jefferson on The Jeffersons, which she portrayed from the series beginning in 1975 until her death. She was the eldest of 10 surviving children born to Ambrose E. and Nora Ann Cully in Worcester, Massachusetts. The Cully family was musical with Ambrose serving as the music director of the church they attended, Zion AME Church. Zara's younger brother, jazz trumpeter Wendell Cully, played with Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington. She graduated from the Worcester School of Speech and Music. In 1940, after an appearance in New York City, she became known as "one of the world's greatest elocutionists". After moving to Jacksonville, Florida, she began producing, writing, directing, and acting in numerous plays. For 15 years she was a drama teacher at her studio as well as at Edward Waters College. She had become known as Florida's "Dean of Drama." Upset by the racism she experienced in the Jim Crow-era South, she decided to move to Hollywood, where she became a regular performer at the Ebony Showcase Theatre. By the time she acquired the role of 'Mother' Jefferson, she had accumulated a long list of acting credentials spanning a half-century, including such movies as The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970), a starring role in Brother John (1971), and Sugar Hill (1974) and Darktown Strutters (1975). Her TV career went back to what critics call 'the Golden Age of Television', including appearances on the highly acclaimed Playhouse 90 series. Aside from The Jeffersons, her television credits included The People Next Door, Run for Your Life, Cowboy in Africa, The Name of the Game, Mod Squad, Night Gallery, and All in the Family. She was one of the oldest performers active in television at the time of her death. She married James M. Brown, Jr. (1914-1968) and they had four children. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn4XZDLrBYE/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Zara Cully 👀💕💦💖💥 January 26, 1892 – February 28, 1978 HAPPY BIRTHDAY - R.I.P. Actress (at West Hollywood, California) https://www.instagram.com/p/Cn4LoL5LMo9/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

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Birthday remembrance - Zara Cully “Mother Jefferson”

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Zara Frances Cully (January 26, 1892 – February 28, 1978) was an American actress. Cully was best known for her role as Olivia 'Mother Jefferson' Jefferson on the CBS sitcom The Jeffersons, which she portrayed from the series beginning in 1975 until her death in 1978.

[davidosu87]

Another Featured Review on Journey with a Cinephile: A Horror Movie Podcast as part of Black Appreciation Month. This is one of the major titles in the blaxploitation sub-genre I hadn't seen yet. I'm a fan of older zombie movies and this takes it back to the roots with voodoo. I do have my issues with the story, but this is a solid, fun movie for sure. What are your thoughts here?

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January: Happy Birthday List

Capricorn (Dec 22-Jan 19) 1: Josette Simon  2: Erica Hubbard, Renée Elise Goldsberry 3: Angelique Perrin, Nicole Beharie 4: Jill Marie Jones, Miss Tina Lawson, Lenora Crichlow, Alexandra Grey, Coco Jones, Sindi Dlathu 5: Ms. Juicy Baby, Olunike Adeliyi 6: Betty Gabriel, Jacqueline Moore, Tiffany Pollard, Armelia McQueen, Tanyell Waivers 7: Blue Ivy Carter, Ruth Negga, Sofia Wylie, Zora Neale Hurston 8: Butterfly McQueen, Ryan Destiny, Cynthia Erivo, Shirley Bassey 9: Amber Ruffin, Flo Milli, Anais Lee/Mirabel Lee 10: Kathleen Bradley, Sisi Stringer, Teresa Graves

11: Adepero Oduye, Aja Naomi King, Amiyah Scott, Kim Coles, Mary J. Blige 12: Cynthia Addai Robinson, Erinn Westbrook, Issa Rae, Naya Rivera, Amerie 13: Janet Hubert, Andy Allo, Shonda Rhimes 14: Adjoa Andoh, Vonetta McGee, Emayatzy Corinealdi 15: Regina King, Kellita Smith, Sanai Victoria 16: Debbie Allen, Aaliyah, FKA Twigs, Sade 17: Eartha Kitt, Indya Moore, Michelle Obama, Ann Wolfe, Quen Blackwell

18: Ashleigh Murray, Estelle, Samantha Mumba 19: Simone Missick, Lidya Jewett, Shaunette Renée Wilson

Aquarius (Jan 20-Feb 18) 21: Anastarzia Anaquway 22: Blesnya Minher, Dwan Smith 23: Lanei Chapman 24: Kenya Moore, Tatyana Ali 25: Ariana DeBose, Jenifer Lewis, Tati Gabrielle, Etta James, Alicia Keys, Willow Nightingale 26: Angela Davis, Anita Baker, Bessie Coleman, Ciera Payton, Desiree Burch, Sasha Banks, Zara Cully  27: Betty Adewole 28: Tyra Ferrell 29: Oprah Winfrey 30: Jody Watley, Kylie Bunbury 31: Miss Peppermint, Kerry Washington

List will be updated as needed... I don't know everybody's birthday, and sometimes, the search engine don't either. I be using Google, and if something's wrong, it's wrong until I figure out the right date. Thank you.

Ones left off in 2024, when I made the list:

Vanity, Sindi Dlathu, Tanyell Waivers, Zaraah Abrahams, Zabryna Guevara, Quen Blackwell, Lanei Chapman, Willow Nightingale

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Brother John Trailer star. Sidney Poitier, Beverly Todd, Lincoln Kilpatrick, Paul Winfield, Richard Ward, & Zara Cully (Columbia Pictures, 3/24/71)

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400 Words on SUGAR HILL [1974] ★★★

Paul Maslansky’s Sugar Hill is ninety-one minutes of blaxploitation catharsis—pure, unadulterated, unapologetic catharsis. The film doesn’t have a plot so much as an inciting incident followed by sequences of increasingly brutal comeuppances. The set-up: after her boyfriend Langston (Larry D. Johnson), a Houston nightclub owner, is murdered by the goons of white mob boss Morgan (Robert Quarry) after refusing to sell his business, Diana “Sugar” Hill (Marki Bey) forms a pact with voodoo lord Baron Samedi (Don Pedro Colley) to get her revenge on Langston’s killers. The traditional narrative connective tissue one expects in such a story is conspicuously missing—at no point does Sugar struggle over her decision, and neither does she go through a crisis of faith over whether voodoo is real or not. In one scene she’s mourning Langston’s death and in the next she’s in the dilapidated mansion of a heretofore unestablished acquaintance—former voodoo queen Mama Maitresse (Zara Cully)—seeking to summon the god of the dead. Samedi himself barely flinches at her request, eagerly agreeing to wreak her vengeance on whomever she wants, even laughingly refusing her offer of her own soul as payment. (If only all murderous deities were so chill about infernal payments!) Barely twenty minutes in and the film is off to the grisly races, establishing a pattern Maslansky clings to for the rest of the runtime: Sugar confronts Morgan, picks out one of his henchmen, sics Samedi on them, and shows up at the last moment before their deaths to rub their just desserts in their faces. (In a genius bit of costuming, during most of her scenes Bey wears her hair straight or pulled back under a scarf. But during the revenge sequences her hair is always puffed up in a natural afro.) This rigid structuring is straight out of the slasher playbook which would only reach final codification later the same year with the same-day releases of Bob Clark’s Black Christmas and Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But with its focus on Samedi as an unstoppable, magical killer, it predicts the rise of supernatural slasher icons like Michael Myers in John Carpenter’s Halloween (1978) and Jason Voorhees in the Friday the 13th series. It’s a shame the film never received any sequels, as Colley’s Samedi is exactly the kind of over-the-top, deliciously evil monster that could prop up an entire franchise.