Margaret Avery Filmography

Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins

Actors: Martin Lawrence, Margaret Avery, Joy Bryant, Louis C.K., Michael Clarke Duncan

Synopsis: A single father who has just found success as the host of an outrageous television talk show begins to question his path in life when he returns home to attend his parents' 50th wedding anniversary party in the company of his famous fiancée -- a reality television star -- in this Read More

White Man's Burden

Actors: John Travolta, Harry Belafonte, Kelly Lynch, Margaret Avery, Tom Bower

Synopsis: From director-writer Desmond Nakano comes this unusual role-reversal picture examining racism from a different perspective. Louis Pinnock (John Travolta) is a semi-literate worker in a chocolate candy factory. One day he makes a delivery to the mansion of wealthy Thaddeus Thomas (Harry Belafonte). Read More

Mardi Gras for the Devil

Actors: Mike Starr, Robert Davi, Michael Ironside, Lesley-Anne Down, Margaret Avery, John Amos

Synopsis: A killer who strikes only during Mardi Gras turns out to be a supernatural demon (Michael Ironside) who has sought human sacrifices ever since the original festival began as an occultist ceremony. The New Orleans cop assigned to the case (Robert Davi) tracks the demon around the city with his Read More

The Cosby Show: Clair's Reunion

Synopsis: Clair (Phylicia Rashad) and her former college classmates attend a retirement dinner for their philosophy teacher, Professor Capel, whom they recall as both a strict taskmaster and a committed civil rights activist--qualities which, in one memorable instance, thoroughly contradicted each other! Read More

The Jacksons: An American Dream

Actors: Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, Angela Bassett, Alex Burrall, Wylie Draper, Damon Morris

Synopsis: A two-part made for TV effort, this special depicts the dysfunctional Jackson family, which has somehow managed to raise its children in such a way that they have managed to rise above their steel town backgrounds to the tops of the charts in the music field. Though obviously not delving into the Read More

Lightning in a Bottle

Actors: Lynda Carter, Dee Wallace, Martin Kove, Matt McCoy, Stuart Whitman

Synopsis: Following a terrible auto wreck, a woman reawakens but can remember nothing about herself or the events leading up to the tragedy. This makes it all the more painful when she discovers that a man and his little boy were killed in the crash, one that she may have caused. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Read More

The Return of Superfly

Actors: Nathan Purdee, Margaret Avery, Leonard Thomas, Christopher Curry, Carlos Carrasco

Synopsis: In this actioner, Eddie Baker is brutally murdered by drug dealers. Later expatriate, reformed drug-dealer Superfly is conned into returning to the US from Paris by federal drug agents. He then must let his former cronies know that he wants back into the drug business. Superfly hasn't been a Read More

Heat Wave

Actors: Blair Underwood, Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, Sally Kirkland, Margaret Avery

Synopsis: Set during the Watts riots of the mid-'60s, the made-for-cable Heat Wave follows the story of Los Angeles Times reporter Robert Richardson (Blair Underwood), who was the only journalist on staff able to cover the story, since White reporters were unable to gain access to the area and the rioters. Read More

Single Women, Married Men

Synopsis: In this drama, a psychotherapist takes a long, hard look at her life when she joins a support group for women involved with married men. She does this after her husband leaves her for a younger woman. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Riverbend

Actors: Steve James, Margaret Avery, Tony Frank, Julius Tennon, Alex Morris

Synopsis: In this made-for-TV actioner, three rebellious black army officers disobey orders in Vietnam and refuse to destroy a village filled with innocent people. They are sent to Georgia where they undergo a court-martial. The officers know that they are going to be railroaded and so manage to escape. The Read More

Blueberry Hill

Actors: Carrie Snodgress, Margaret Avery, Jennifer Rubin, Matt Lattanzi, Tommy Swerdlow

Synopsis: A first-rate jazz score dominates the coming-of-age drama Blueberry Hill. Jennifer Rubin plays a small town girl of the 1950s whose musician father dies suddenly. Rubin's grief is not assuaged by her mother Carrie Snodgrass, who is having enough trouble coping with the tragedy on her own. The Read More

The Color Purple

Actors: Danny Glover, Whoopi Goldberg, Margaret Avery, Oprah Winfrey, Willard E. Pugh

Synopsis: Based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Alice Walker, The Color Purple spans the years 1909 to 1949, relating the life of Celie (Whoopi Goldberg), a Southern black woman virtually sold into a life of servitude to her brutal husband, sharecropper Albert (Danny Glover). Celie pours out her Read More

Murder, She Wrote: Jessica Behind Bars

Synopsis: The scene is the West Barrington Institute for Women, where warden Elizabeth Gates (Vera Miles) invites Jessica (Angela Lansbury) to lecture on creative writing. Of course, wherever Jessica goes, murder follows, and this time the victim is the prison's doctor Irene Matthews (Janet McLachlan). Read More

For Us, The Living: The Story of Medgar Evers

Actors: Howard E. Rollins, Jr., Irene Cara

Synopsis: Howard E. Rollins stars as martyred civil-rights spokesman Medgar Evers, while Irene Cara co-stars as his wife (and future NAACP leader) Myrlie. The film concentrates on the last years of Evers, an ex-insurance agent turned activist. His home in Jackson, Mississippi is besieged by bigots and he Read More

The Sky is Gray

Synopsis: Ernest J. Gaines' short story The Sky is Gray was adapted for television by Charles Fuller. James Bond III plays the son of black sharecropper Olivia Cole in this haunting period piece. Young Bond takes a trip to the city with his mother, where he experiences at close quarters the hatred and Read More

The Lathe of Heaven

Actors: Kevin Conway

Synopsis: Based on the novel by Ursula K. LeGuin, The Lathe of Heaven is a special-effects lover's smorgasbord. Set in futuristic Portland, Oregon, the film stars Bruce Davidson as a man prone to fantastic dreams. When these dreams start coming true, only Davidson at first is aware of it: "my dreams changed Read More

The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh

Actors: Julius "Dr. J" Erving, Jonathan Winters, Meadowlark Lemon, Jack Kehoe, Margaret Avery

Synopsis: The "fish" in the title of this picture refers to the astrological sign Pisces. Not all of Pittsburgh is due to be saved, but the members of a third-rate NBA basketball team could sure use some salvation. When all the team members except for Moses Guthrie (Julius Erving) quit, astrologer Mona Read More

Scott Joplin

Actors: Billy Dee Williams, Clifton Davis, Margaret Avery, Eubie Blake, Godfrey Cambridge

Synopsis: Billy Dee Williams stars as legendary ragtime pianist/composer Scott Joplin in this 1977 biopic. Despite his brilliance, Joplin (1868-1917) was confined by the color of his skin to the dregs of show business in the late 19th century. While competing in a musical contest, Joplin introduces his most Read More

Which Way Is Up?

Actors: Richard Pryor, Lonette McKee, Margaret Avery, Morgan Woodward, Marilyn Coleman

Synopsis: This Americanized remake of Lina Wertmuller's The Seduction of Mimi offered audiences the novelty of seeing Richard Pryor performing three different roles in the same film. Which Way Is Up? tells the tale of Leroy Jones (Pryor), a poor orange picker who gets fired from his job when he accidentally Read More

Louis Armstrong: Chicago Style

Synopsis: In his TV dramatic debut, Ben Vereen stars as legendary jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong. The teleplay dramatizes a single incident in 1931, when Armstrong, still struggling for recognition, was playing a small Chicago bistro. Local gangsters catch Louis' act and offer him a huge salary increase to Read More

Sanford and Son: Strange Bedfellows

Actors: Redd Foxx, Demond Wilson, Whitman Mayo, LaWanda Page, Margaret Avery

Synopsis: Hoping to impress his new girlfriend, a politically active young lady named Denise (Margaret Avery), Lamont (Demond Wilson) calls up a radio talk show to air his views on community affairs. Impressed by Lamont's eloquence, a number of highly-connected people suggest that he run for the state Read More

Ironside: The Last Payment

Synopsis: Much against the wishes of Chief Ironside (Raymond Burr), Mark (Don Mitchell) goes undercover to smash an extortion ring preying on ghetto dwellers. It's a personal crusade for Mark: one of the ring's victims is his friend Gilbert, who is forced to pay huge sums of money each week lest harm befall Read More

Magnum Force

Actors: Clint Eastwood, Hal Holbrook, Mitchell Ryan, Felton Perry, David Soul

Synopsis: The second Dirty Harry movie, Magnum Force concerns itself with a vigilante group that has targeted notorious scofflaws for extermination. When a prominent gang boss or drug-runner is set free by the airheaded liberal courts, a covert group of "avengers" is soon on hand to blow the miscreant to Read More

The Psychopath

Synopsis: In this violent and blood-soaked horror outing, the kindly host of a popular kiddie show has a secret life as the psycho avenger of children's rights who murders the parents who abuse them. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Black Caesar

Actors: Omer Jeffrey

Synopsis: Cult director Larry Cohen (It's Alive) directed this violent blaxploitation film. Nasty racist John McKinney cripples a black shoeshine boy, who grows up to be Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson), the Godfather of Harlem. The crimelord now has his tormentor McKinney (Art Lund) in his pocket, based on Read More

Hell Up in Harlem

Actors: Fred Williamson

Synopsis: This hastily assembled sequel to the blaxploitation hit Black Caesar downplays the gritty drama of that film to create a pure action tale with a comic book flavor. The story begins with badly wounded crimelord Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson) escaping an assassination attempt masterminded by corrupt Read More

Cool Breeze

Synopsis: This is a remake of The Asphalt Jungle with an all black cast. In it a paroled convict plans to steal $3 million work of jewels, sell them, and use the bread to start a bank to back black businesses. He is assisted by two pals, his half-brother, and a preacher who also works as a thief. The Read More

The Folks at Red Wolf Inn

Actors: Linda Gillin, Arthur Space

Synopsis: The Folks at Red Wolf Inn is also known as Club Dead. It's also also known as Terror at Red Wolf Inn. It's also also also known as Terror House. It's also also also also known as Terror on the Menu. Perhaps you're beginning to glom onto the fact that its plotline has something to do with Read More

Something Evil

Actors: Steven Spielberg

Synopsis: A young Steven Spielberg helmed the made-for-TV Something Evil. Johnny Whitaker (Family Affair) is cast as Stevie Worden, an angelic child whose parents move into a foreboding Pennsylvania mansion. It isn't long before Stevie is possessed with the house's resident demonic spirit. In anticipation Read More

Curtain Up

Actors: Robert Morley, Margaret Rutherford, Olive Sloane, Joan Rice, Charlotte Mitchell

Synopsis: The world of provincial British theatre is given a gentle going over in Curtain Up. Short of funds, a small-town repertory troupe is forced to bow to the whims of wealthy Catherine (Margaret Rutherford), the aunt of the theatre's manager. When Catherine writes a perfectly dreadful play, the actors Read More

A Boy, a Girl and A Bike

Actors: John McCallum, Honor Blackman, Patrick Holt, Maurice Denham

Synopsis: The boy is Sam Walters (Patrick Holt). The girl is Susie Bates (future Avengers star Honor Blackman). The bike is one of several used by a British cycling club. Boy and girl have fun peddling about the countryside until the girl's pretty head is turned by David Howarth (John McCallum), a wealthy Read More