Pioneering actress Judy Lenteen Pace died from natural causes on March 11, in California. She was 83.
Pace’s daughters, attorney Shawn Pace Mitchell and actress Julia Pace Mitchell, said their mother “died peacefully in her sleep” on March 11 while visiting family in Marina Del Rey.
Pace was known for her roles in blaxploitation films in the 1970s, including Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), Cool Breeze (1972), and The Slams (1973).
She also starred in the 1971 ABC Movie of the Week Brian’s Song, a biopic about former Chicago Bears star Brian Piccolo who had terminal cancer. Pace played former Chicago Bears star Gale Sayers’s wife, Linda. Gale was played by Billy Dee Williams.
Pace guest starred in the TV series That’s My Mama (1974), Sanford and Son (1974), Good Times (1975), Peyton Place (1968–1969), The Mod Squad (1968), I Dream of Jeannie (1967), and Days of Our Lives.
Variety magazine called Pace “the most beautiful black actress in Hollywood.”
In 1972, Pace married actor Don Mitchell. They had two daughters together before their divorce in 1984. He is best known for appearing alongside Raymond Burr in the NBC TV series Ironside (1967–1975). Don died on December 8, 2013 at age 70.
Pace married former baseball player Curt Flood in 1986. They stayed together until his death in 1997.
Her family requested donations be made to the NAACP in her memory.
