Beah RichardsFilmography

Beloved

Actors: Oprah Winfrey, Danny Glover, Thandie Newton, Kimberly Elise, Beah Richards

Synopsis: Jonathan Demme directed this adaptation of Toni Morrison's fact-based fifth novel (winner of a 1988 Pulitzer Prize), written in an experimental stream-of-consciousness flow and capturing the impact and aftermath of slavery on the human soul. In 1873, middle-aged Sethe (Oprah Winfrey) lives near Read More

ER: Motherhood

Synopsis: Oscar-winning filmmaker Quentin Tarantino directed this episode, which contains all manner of characteristic black comedy touches, not to mention Tarantino's trademarked use of a popular 1960s songs to comment upon the action. The story occurs on Mother's Day, when the long-suffering Lewis (Sherry Stringfield Read More

ER: House of Cards

Synopsis: New ER boss Dr. Swift (Michael Ironside) requests (read: "demands") that Greene discuss the OR death of Jodi O'Brien death before a hospital conference. Deb's (Ming-Na) rush to pile up more procedures than Carter (Noah Wyle) results in serious error. Ross (George Clooney) grows ever closer to Read More

ER: Full Moon, Saturday Night

Synopsis: Michael Ironside makes his first appearance as new ER chief Dr. William Swift, who immediately sets the staff on its ear with his bizarre management style and intense perfectionism. Meanwhile, the rivalry between med student Carter (Noah Wyle) and Deb (Ming-Na) reaches a new height of absurdity. Read More

ER: Love's Labor Lost

Synopsis: In this Emmy award-winning episode, Greene (Anthony Edwards) takes a potentially career-destroying risk after he misdiagnoses the condition of a woman (Colleen Flynn) and her unborn child. Although Greene's OR battle to save his patients' lives is the episode's focal point, several other subplots Read More

ER: Luck of the Draw

Synopsis: Lewis (Sherry Stringfield) feels she is under attack from all sides when Kayson (Sam Anderson) draws up charges against her vis-à-vis the Vennerbeck death, and ER chief Morganstern (William H. Macy) reprimands her for her lack of self-confidence. Elsewhere, Greene (Anthony Edwards) tends to Read More

ER: Sleepless in Chicago

Synopsis: Despite orders from Hicks (CCH Pounder), Benton (Eriq La Salle) is determined to stay awake throughout a 48-hour shift, with potentially disastrous results. Elsewhere, a terminally ill patient (Sanford Meisner) is inadvertently given a brief "reprieve" by Carter (Noah Wyle). Ross (George Clooney) Read More

ER: Make of Two Hearts

Synopsis: Carol (Julianna Margulies) takes a more than professional interest in Tatiana (Milana Vayntrub), a six-year-old Russian girl with AIDS who has been adopted -- and then abandoned -- by an American family. Overachiever Deb (Ming-Na) accidentally ingests some candy-coated LSD. And despite their Read More

ER: 9 1/2 Hours

Synopsis: A flustered Ross (George Clooney) covers for Greene (Anthony Edwards), who has called in sick so that he can spend some time with his wife, Jenn (Christine Harnos). Carol (Julianna Margulies) finds a kindred spirit in her newest patient, Jamie (Brigid Walsh), a suicidal rape victim. Benton (Eriq La Salle Read More

Out of Darkness

Synopsis: In this drama, a woman attempts to recovering following a bout of schizophrenia. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Hearts Afire: Season 01

Actors: John Ritter, Markie Post, Billy Bob Thornton, Wendie Jo Sperber, Justin Burnette

Synopsis: Season one of Hearts Afire takes place in Washington D.C., where transplanted Southerner John Hartman (John Ritter) has relocated as chief of staff to ultra-conservative Senator Strobe Smithers. Recently divorced and the father of two sons, Ben (Justin Burnette) and Elliott (Clark Duke), Hartman Read More

Murder, She Wrote: Judge Not

Synopsis: In New Orleans, Jessica (Angela Lansbury) attends the funeral of a legendary jazz musician. She also gets involved in a murder investigation--this one twenty years old, stemming from the unsolved slaying of the late musician's sweetheart. Evidently the reopening of this case also opens a few old Read More

One Special Victory

Actors: John Larroquette, Kathy Baker, Joe Pantoliano, Christine Estabrook, Phil Hartman

Synopsis: When a self-involved real estate agent is given fifty hours of community service to do by a judge, he becomes the coach for a basketball team of developmentally challenged adults. In trying to teach them, he learns. ~ Tana Hobart, All Movie Guide Read More

Capital News

Actors: Lloyd Bridges

Synopsis: Lloyd Bridges stars as a newspaper chief in this made-for-television movie about life in big-city journalism. This fast-paced movie, which was the pilot for a short-lived series of the same name on ABC, follows various plotlines as the reporters' personal and professional lives become intertwined. Read More

Homer and Eddie

Actors: James Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg, Karen Black, John Waters, Beah Richards, Robert Glaudini

Synopsis: Director Andrei Konchalovsky comes a cropper with this mawkish road movie starring Whoopi Goldberg and James Belushi. Goldberg plays Edwina, an escaped mental patient with a brain tumor and only a month to live. Belushi is Homer, a retarded man abandoned by his parents when he was a child after a Read More

Drugstore Cowboy

Actors: Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch, James LeGros, Heather Graham, James Remar

Synopsis: The operative word in Drugstore Cowboy is "drug". Matt Dillon plays the leader of a group of dopeheads who wander around the country robbing pharmacies to feed their habits. Dillon's chums include doltish James Le Gros and teen-age junkie Heather Graham; also along for the ride is Dillon's wife Kelly Lynch Read More

Murder, She Wrote: Mourning Among the Wisterias

Synopsis: Jessica (Angela Lansbury) heads Southward to visit an old friend, celebrated playwright Eugene McLendon (Barry Nelson). Inevitably, a murder occurs: the victim this time is Eugene's crooked business manager Jonathan Keeler (Elliott Reid). Deciding to stay on and help out when Eugene is suspected Read More

Big Shots

Actors: Ricky Busker, Darius McCrary, Robert Joy, Robert Prosky, Jerzy Skolimowski

Synopsis: Consumed by grief when his father is felled by a heart attack, 11-year-old Obie (Ricky Busker) runs away from his white, upper-class surroundings. He ends up in a particularly dismal Chicago ghetto neighborhood where, after enduring a beating administered by gang members, he is befriended by Read More

Inside Out

Actors: Elliott Gould, Howard Hesseman, Jennifer Tilly, Beah Richards, Nicole Norman

Synopsis: Agoraphobia (Greek for "fear of the marketplace") is the focus of this drama starring Elliott Gould as Jimmy Morgan. Morgan seems fairly well-adjusted considering that deeply afflicted agoraphobics live in fear and even terror of human relationships and other people; a fear of going outside is Read More

Hunter: Not Just Another John Doe

Synopsis: Season Four of Hunter begins as police detectives Hunter (Fred Dryer) and McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) investigate the seemingly motiveless murder of a skid-row derelict. It turns out that the "bum" was anything but, and that he had been deliberately targeted by a hit man. Despite the interferences Read More

Hunter: Saturday Night Special

Synopsis: Ambitious journalist Isabel Turette (Anne-Marie Johnson) has parlayed a string of skid-row murders into a spectacular, Pulitzer-worthy front-page story. As Hunter (Fred Dryer) and McCall (Stepfanie Kramer) investigate the killings, they can't help but notice that the journalist has refused to Read More

Acceptable Risks

Synopsis: The manager of a chemical plant and a city manager rise up against their respective bosses to keep a town safe in this ecologically conscientious made-for-TV disaster film. It all begins when the owners of Citichem order the plant manager to enact dangerous cost cuts that compromise the safety of Read More

As Summers Die

Actors: Jamie Lee Curtis, Bette Davis, Scott Glenn

Synopsis: As Summers Die was produced as an "HBO Premiere" attraction. Set in the segregationist South of the 1950s, the film pits the wealthy but decadent members of a landed-gentry white family against a feisty old black woman, on whose property oil has been discovered. Idealistic attorney Scott Glenn Read More

Highway to Heaven: As Difficult as ABC

Synopsis: High-school basketball star Brian Baldwin (Glenn Michael Jones) has been assured a hefty scholarship to the college of his choice. Unfortunately, Brian is disqualified because of a heart condition -- and his chances for acceptance in any other college (or any adult job, for that matter) are slim Read More

Generation

Actors: Bert Remsen

Synopsis: Set on the last day of 1999, Generation takes place during a family reunion. Richard Beymer plays an inventor who has created high-tech prosthetic devices in order to help his younger brother Drake Hogestyn. Once a star athlete in the brutal (and sometimes fatal) game of combat hockey, Hogestyn Read More

The Sophisticated Gents

Actors: Paul Winfield, Bernie Casey, Roosevelt Grier

Synopsis: The three-part TV miniseries The Sophisticated Gents covers 25 years in the lives of a group of close friends. Nine African-American members of a sports club gather for a quarter-century reunion. As they reminisce over the high and low points of their lives, some of the members await the arrival Read More

A Christmas Without Snow

Actors: Ramon Bieri, Michael Learned, Ruth Nelson, Valerie Curtin, John Houseman

Synopsis: A Christmas Without Snow originally premiered December 9, 1980. The title refers to the film's setting: the snowless San Francisco. The story is told from the point of view of newly divorced Michael Learned, who comes to grips with disillusionment with a little help from her friends in the church Read More

Roots: The Next Generations

Actors: Georg Stanford Brown, Olivia de Havilland, Henry Fonda, Paul Koslo

Synopsis: The phenomenal success of the 1977 ABC miniseries Roots all but demanded a sequel to writer Alex Haley's epic story of his African and African-American forebears. Debuting February 18, 1979, Roots: The Next Generations picked up where its predecessor left off, with Haley's slave ancestors winning Read More

Banjo the Woodpile Cat

Actors: Sparky Marcus, Scatman Crothers, Beah Richards, Jerry Harper

Synopsis: A rare TV project from animator Don Bluth, Banjo the Woodpile Cat begins in somewhere in the Great Midwest, where the title character, a mischievous kitten, pulls one too many pranks on his mom and dad. Fearing severe punishment, Banjo hops a truck bound for Salt Lake City. Here he is befriended Read More

Ring of Passion

Actors: Allen Garfield

Synopsis: Ring of Passion is a self-described "docudrama" of the professional rivalry between African-American boxing great Joe Louis and German fistic champ Max Schmeling. On June 19, 1936, Schmeling (Stephen Macht) beats Louis (Bernie Casey) for the European championship. Germany's Nazi government uses Read More

Just an Old Sweet Song

Synopsis: Originally telecast September 14, 1976, as a CBS "General Electric Theater" special, Just an Old Sweet Song was the first of three pilots for Down Home, a proposed TV series created by filmmaker Melvin Van Peebles. Robert Hooks and Cicely Tyson star as Nate and Priscilla Simmons, the patriarch and Read More

Mahogany

Actors: Diana Ross, Billy Dee Williams, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Beah Richards, Nina Foch

Synopsis: Directed by Berry Gordy, Jr. as a vehicle for his star Diana Ross, Mahogany traces the life of a poor girl who makes it in the fashion world (first as a model, then designer) and deserts her boyfriend (Billy Dee Williams) in the meantime, hooking up instead with a photographer (Anthony Perkins). Read More

Outrage

Synopsis: In this drama, a doctor becomes a vigilante to keep adolescent gang members from destroying the peace of his neighborhood. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

A Dream for Christmas

Synopsis: Created by Earl Hamner, A Dream for Christmas is set in the 1950s. African-American minister Will Douglas (Hari Rhodes) moves his family from Arkansas to the Watts section of Los Angeles to take charge of an impoverished church. The attendance, at least at first, is as poor as the congregation. Read More

Tomorrow's Champion

Sanford and Son: By the Numbers

Actors: Redd Foxx, Demond Wilson, Don Bexley, Beah Richards, David Moses

Synopsis: In this first episode of Sanford and Son's second season, junk dealer Fred Sanford (Redd Foxx) yearns for the "good old days" when he could gamble on the numbers game without interference. Alas, Fred's son Lamont (Demond Wilson) is strictly against his dad frittering his money away. When Fred Read More

Footsteps

Synopsis: In this sports drama, a small college, desperate for a grid iron win, hires an ultra tough new coach. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Biscuit Eater

Actors: Earl Holliman, Lew Ayres, Godfrey Cambridge, Pat Crowley, Beah Richards

Synopsis: In this touching adventure, a remake of the popular 1940 film, two Georgia boys ignore their racial differences to team up and befriend a feral bird dog, whom they train to participate in a fence-jumping contest. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Sanford and Son: The Light Housekeeper

Actors: Redd Foxx, Demond Wilson, Mary Wickes, Beah Richards

Synopsis: Recuperating from a broken arm suffered in an accident, Fred (Redd Foxx) is unable to do any housework. To alleviate the problem, Fred's son Lamont (Redd Foxx) agrees to hire a maid -- at bargain prices. The inimitable Mary Wickes guest-stars as abrasive housekeeper Mary, who, need we add, turns Read More

The Great White Hope

Actors: James Earl Jones, Jane Alexander, Lou Gilbert, Joel Fluellen, Chester Morris

Synopsis: Although the characters' names were changed, The Great White Hope was a thinly veiled account of the trials and tribulations of boxer Jack Johnson, based on the play by Howard Sackler and directed by Martin Ritt. James Earl Jones stars as boxing great Jack Jefferson, who defeats Frank Bardy Larry Pennell Read More

Ironside: Alias Mr. Braithwaite

Synopsis: Season Thee of Ironside begins as wheelchair-bound detective Robert T. Ironside (Raymond Burr) and his team set their sighs on prolific con artist Raymond Otis Baker (Joseph Campanella), who specializes in bilking little old ladies out of their life savings. Unfortunately for Baker--or, as he is Read More

Hurry Sundown

Actors: Michael Caine, Jane Fonda, John Phillip Law, Diahann Carroll, Faye Dunaway, Robert Hooks

Synopsis: Otto Preminger directed this star-studded adaptation of K.B. Gliden's novel about racial prejudice and emotional unrest in the Deep South. Henry Warren (Michael Caine) is a land owner obsessed with buying up all available land in a Georgia farming town. However, two parcels of land have escaped Read More

Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Sidney Poitier, Katharine Houghton, Beah Richards, Roy E. Glenn, Sr., Isabel Sanford, Cecil Kellaway

Synopsis: Old-line liberals Matt and Christina Drayton (Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn) have raised their daughter Joey (Katharine Houghton) to think for herself and not blindly conform to the conventional. Still, they aren't prepared for the shock when she returns home from a vacation with a new Read More

In the Heat of the Night

Actors: Sidney Poitier, Rod Steiger, Warren Oates, Lee Grant, James Patterson, Scott Wilson

Synopsis: The winner of the 1967 Oscar for Best Picture (as well as four other Oscars), In the Heat of the Night is set in a small Mississippi town where an unusual murder has been committed. Rod Steiger plays sheriff Bill Gillespie, a good lawman despite his racial prejudices. When Virgil Tibbs (Sidney Poitier Read More

Purlie Victorious

Actors: Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Sorrell Booke, Godfrey Cambridge, Hilda Haynes

Synopsis: This film version of the successful stage play was written by and stars Ossie Davis as Purlie Victorious, a flamboyant, self ordained minister. Along with wife Lutibelle (Ruby Dee), he returns to Georgia to buy an old barn and convert it into a church. He seeks out Captain Cotchipec (Sorrel Read More

The Miracle Worker

Actors: Anne Bancroft, Patty Duke, Victor Jory, Inga Swenson, Andrew Prine

Synopsis: Based on William Gibson's Broadway play and retaining its acclaimed cast, Arthur Penn's The Miracle Worker tells the true story of Helen Keller (Patty Duke), an Alabama girl struck blind and deaf as a baby after an elevated fever. Enter Annie Sullivan (Anne Bancroft), a partially-blind woman Read More

Take a Giant Step

Actors: Johnny Nash, Ruby Dee, Frederick O'Neal, Ellen Holly

Synopsis: Young (19-year-old) reggae and rhythm-and-blues singer Johnny Nash stars in this conventional coming-of-age story about a well-heeled, Afro-American teen trying to find his way in a white-man's world. The realities of that world hit Spencer (Nash) hard, and at first he looks for solace and comfort Read More