In Remembrance: Ron O’Neal

     Ron O’Neal, whose role as role as the tough talking drug dealer Youngblood Priest in 1972’s Superfly rocketed him to fame, passed away Wednesday January 14, 2004. He was 66.

     Born in Utica, NY on September 1, 1937, O’Neal was raised in Cleveland, Ohio. After graduating Glenville High School he attended Ohio State University for a semester where stated he “just played bridge.” After seeing a production of Finian’s Rainbow, he became interested in acting. He joined the experimental interracial theatrical troupe Karamu House (Karamu is the Swahili word for “Place of Enjoyment”) in 1957, training there for nine years and acting in productions of Kiss Me Kate and A Streetcar Named Desire.

     In 1966, he moved to New York to pursue a career in acting. He supported himself teaching school in Harlem while he looked for work. O’Neal’s first big break came when he was cast in a Broadway production of Ceremonies In Dark Old Men. In 1970, he won an Obie Award for his performance in Joseph Papp’s Public Theatre production of No Place To Be Somebody. O’Neal worked on two small films, Move (1970) and The Organization (1971), before he was contacted by an old Cleveland friend Philip Fenty about starring in a script he had written about a street hustler who wanted to go straight.

     Superfly (1972) was a surprise success and its tale of a drug dealer trying to find redemption helped to make it one of the quintessential films in the burgeoning blaxploitation genre. Shot on a show string budget, with producer Sig Shore reportedly having to shut down production for two four day stretches when he couldn’t afford raw film stock, the movie would go on to gross $6.4 million at the box office. The movie’s funky soundtrack spent 46 weeks on the Billboard charts, five of them at number one, and would sell over two million copies.

     The following year, O’Neal returned for a sequel, Superfly TNT, for which he also co-wrote the story and directed. Unfortunately, the film was a disappointment and O’Neal soon found the only film roles offered to him were pimps and drug dealers. He returned to Broadway in 1975, replacing Cleavon Little in Murray Schisgal's All Over Town, which was directed by Dustin Hoffman.

     O’Neal would go on to appear in other movies, namely The Master Gunfighter (1975), When a Stranger Calls (1979), A Force of One (1979) and Up Against A Wall (1991), which he also directed. He also made many TV appearances including featured roles in the 1985 miniseries North and South and the series Bring `Em Back Alive in 1982 and The Equalizer in 1986 as well as quest shots on such series as A Different World and Frank's Place. In 1996, O’Neal joined other former 70s black action stars, including Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, Richard Roundtree and Pam Grier, in the blaxploitation homage entitled Original Gangstas.