Character actress Carol Speed died Friday at her home in Muskogee, Oklahoma, her family announced. She was 76.
Born Carol Ann Bennett Stewart in Bakersfield, California, Speed was the first Black homecoming queen in Santa Clara County.
Speed is best known for her roles in blaxploitation films The Mack, Black Samson and Abby.
She played Lulu, Max Julien‘s prostitute in The Mack (1973), a possessed woman in Abby (1974), and the girlfriend of a lion-owning club owner (Rockne Tarkington) in Black Samson (1974).
RELATED: RIP: Max Julien, Star of ‘The Mack’, Dead at 88
Speed’s The Mack co-star Max Julien died on New Year’s Day at age 88.
Speed also played an inmate opposite Pam Grier in The Big Bird Cage (1972) and she was left stranded at the alter by Lamont (Demond Wilson) in the “Sanford and Son” episode “Here Comes the Bride, There Goes the Bride.”
She starred on an episode of NBC’s Julia opposite Diahann Carroll and had a recurring role on the NBC daytime soap opera Days of Our Lives in 1970.
Speed had one child, a son, who died. She leaves behind a grandson, Marc, and sister Barbara.
Watch scenes from The Mack featuring Carol Speed and Max Julien below.
