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Fred Williamson
Frederick Robert Williamson (born March 5, 1938), also known as The Hammer, is an American actor and former professional American football defensive back who played mainly in the American Football League during the 1960s. Williamson is perhaps best known for his film career, starring as Tommy Gibbs in the 1973 crime drama film '' Black Caesar'' and its sequel ''Hell Up in Harlem''. Williamson also had other notable roles in other 1970s blaxploitation films such as '' Hammer'' (1972), ''That Man Bolt'' (1973) and '' Three the Hard Way'' (1974). Early life and education Born in Gary, Indiana, Williamson was the oldest child born to Frank, a welder and Lydia Williamson. Williamson attended Froebel High School, where he ran track and played football. He graduated in 1956. After high school, Williamson left Gary for Evanston, Illinois to attend Northwestern University on a football scholarship. Career Football After playing college football for Northwestern in the late 1950s, Willi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gary, Indiana
Gary is a city in Lake County, Indiana, United States. The city has been historically dominated by major industrial activity and is home to U.S. Steel's Gary Works, the largest steel mill complex in North America. Gary is located along the southern shore of Lake Michigan about east of downtown Chicago, Illinois. The city is adjacent to the Indiana Dunes National Park, and is within the Chicago metropolitan area. Gary was named after lawyer Elbert Henry Gary, who was the founding chairman of the United States Steel Corporation. U.S. Steel had established the city as a company town to serve its steel mills. Although initially a very diverse city, after white flight in the 1970s, the city of Gary held the nation's highest percentage of African Americans for several decades. As of the 2020 census the city's population was 70,093, making it Indiana's ninth-largest city. Like other Rust Belt cities, Gary's once thriving steel industry has been significantly affected by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Defensive Back
In gridiron football, defensive backs (DBs), also called the secondary, are the players on the defensive side of the ball who play farthest back from the line of scrimmage. They are distinguished from the other two sets of defensive players, the defensive linemen who play directly on the line of scrimmage, and the linebackers, who play in the middle of the defense, between the defensive line and the defensive backs. Among the defensive backs, there are two main types, cornerbacks, which play nearer the line of scrimmage and the sideline, whose main role is to cover the opposing team's wide receivers, and the Safety (gridiron football position), safeties, who play further back near the center of the field, and who act as the last line of defense. American defensive formations usually includes two of each, a left and right cornerback, as well as a strong safety and a free safety, with the free safety tending to play further back than the strong safety. In Canadian football, which ha ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
College Football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most other sports in North America, no official minor league farm organizations exist in American or Canadian football. Therefore, college football is generally considered to be the second tier of American and Canadian football; one step ahead of high school competition, and one step below professional competition (the NFL). In some areas of the US, especially the South and the Midwest, college football is more popular than professional football, and for much of the 20th century college football was seen as more prestigious. A player's performance in college football directly impacts his chances of playing professional football. The best collegiate players will typically declare for the professional draft after three to four years of colleg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Chartered by the Illinois General Assembly in 1851, Northwestern was established to serve the former Northwest Territory. The university was initially affiliated with the Methodist Episcopal Church but later became non-sectarian. By 1900, the university was the third largest university in the United States. In 1896, Northwestern became a founding member of the Big Ten Conference, and joined the Association of American Universities as an early member in 1917. The university is composed of eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools, which include the Kellogg School of Management, the Pritzker School of Law, the Feinberg School of Medicine, the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences, the Bienen School of Music, the McCormick ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Three The Hard Way (film)
''Three the Hard Way'' is a 1974 action blaxploitation film directed by Gordon Parks Jr., written by Eric Bercovici and Jerrold L. Ludwig and starring Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and Jim Kelly (martial artist), Jim Kelly. Plot Jimmy Lait (Brown) and his girlfriend, Wendy, come across Jimmy's friend, House, wounded and dying. Lait learns from House that he had escaped from a secret medical experimentation facility. Later in the hospital, a delirious House tells Lait that there is someone who aims to "kill us all" and that they have a way of doing it. However, Lait has to return to the studio to supervise a recording session with a group he is producing, The Impressions. He leaves Wendy in the hospital. While Wendy talks to Jimmy on the phone outside of the room, two men climb through the window, murder House and kidnap Wendy. After finding out about her kidnapping, Jimmy begins a quest to find the whereabouts of his girlfriend, but a group of attackers ambush him. Lait sur ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
That Man Bolt
''That Man Bolt'' is a 1973 American action film directed by David Lowell Rich and Henry Levin. It stars Fred Williamson in the title role of a courier and Byron Webster. The film combined several genres: blaxploitation, the martial arts film, and James Bond superspy films (with some postures featuring the tagline "He's Bonded"). It was filmed in Hong Kong, Macau and the United States and featured several martial arts experts in action: Mike Stone, World Professional Light Heavyweight Karate Champion, Kenji Kazama Japan Kickboxing Champion, Emil Farkas, European Black Belt Karate Champion, and David Chow, Former California State Judo Champion. It was titled ''Operation Hong Kong'' outside the United States. Peter Crowcroft wrote the novelization of the screenplay. Plot Courier Jefferson Bolt is asked to take a briefcase from Hong Kong to Mexico City, but he is not told what is in it or the identity of the man who asks him, a man named Griffiths. Convinced he will get good pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hammer (film)
''Hammer'' is a 1972 blaxploitation film directed by Bruce D. Clark. The film was released following the successes of ''Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song'' and '' Shaft'', notable 1971 films that popularized black cinema. It starred Fred Williamson as B.J. Hammer. Williamson went on to become a staple of the genre. Plot B.J. Hammer is a boxer who rises up the ranks with help from the Mafia. However, Hammer doesn't realize that the help comes with a price: He is asked to throw a fight. Gangsters threaten to harm his girlfriend in an attempt to force him to go through with their plan. Hammer is forced to figure out a way to save his dignity and the life of his girlfriend when she is kidnapped by the gangsters. Cast * Fred Williamson as B.J. Hammer * Bernie Hamilton as Davis * Vonetta McGee as Lois * Charles Lampkin as Sid "Big Sid" * William Smith as Brenner * Elizabeth Harding as Rhoda * Mel Stewart as Professor * Stack Pierce as "Roughhouse" * John Quade as Riley * D'Urv ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Blaxploitation
Blaxploitation is an ethnic subgenre of the exploitation film that emerged in the United States during the early 1970s. The term, a portmanteau of the words "black" and "exploitation", was coined in August 1972 by Junius Griffin, the president of the Beverly Hills-Hollywood NAACP branch. He claimed the genre was "proliferating offenses" to the black community in its perpetuation of stereotypical characters often involved in crime. The genre does rank among the first after the race films in the 1940s and 1960s in which black characters and communities are the protagonists and subjects of film and television, rather than sidekicks, antagonists or victims of brutality. The genre's inception coincides with the rethinking of race relations in the 1970s. Blaxploitation films were originally aimed at an urban African-American audience but the genre's audience appeal soon broadened across racial and ethnic lines. Hollywood realized the potential profit of expanding the audiences of bla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hell Up In Harlem
''Hell Up in Harlem'' is a 1973 blaxploitation American neo-noir film, starring Fred Williamson and Gloria Hendry. Written and directed by Larry Cohen, it is a sequel to the film '' Black Caesar''. The film's soundtrack was recorded by Edwin Starr and released by Motown Records in January 1974. Plot Having survived the assassination attempt at the end of '' Black Caesar'', Tommy Gibbs takes on corrupt New York District Attorney DiAngelo, who had sought to jail Gibbs and his father, Papa Gibbs, in order to monopolize the illicit drug trade. Gibbs decides to eliminate drug pushing from the streets of Harlem, while continuing to carry out his other illicit enterprises. Gibbs falls in love with Sister Jennifer (Margaret Avery), a woman who works with Reverend Rufus, a former pimp who has found a religious calling. Gibbs and his father have a falling out after Gibbs is told by his enforcer, Zach, that his father ordered the death of Gibbs' ex-wife, Helen. Gibbs and Jennifer move to L ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Black Caesar (film)
''Black Caesar'' (released theatrically in the UK as ''Godfather of Harlem'') is a 1973 American blaxploitation crime drama film written and directed by Larry Cohen and starring Fred Williamson, Gloria Hendry and Julius Harris. It features a musical score ('' Black Caesar'') by James Brown (with heavy input from his bandleader Fred Wesley), his first experience with writing music for film. A sequel titled ''Hell Up in Harlem'' was released in late 1973.Gary A. Smith, ''The American International Pictures Video Guide'', McFarland 2009 p 25 Plot Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson) is an African-American who grew up in Harlem, New York City. As a kid, he was brutally assaulted by a cop named McKinney. The incident led him to a life of crime. As an adult, he joins the New York mafia and becomes the head of a black crime syndicate in Harlem. He wages a gang war with the Italian mobsters of New York City and begins to establish a criminal empire, keeping a ledger book of all his dealin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Crime Drama
Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine with many other genres, such as Drama (film and television), drama or gangster film, but also include Comedy film, comedy, and, in turn, is divided into many sub-genres, such as Mystery film, mystery, suspense or Film noir, noir. Screenwriter and scholar Eric R. Williams identified crime film as one of eleven super-genres in his Screenwriters Taxonomy, claiming that all feature-length Narrative film, narrative films can be classified by these super-genres. The other ten super-genres are action, fantasy, horror, romance, science fiction, slice of life, sports, thriller, war and western. Williams identifies drama in a broader category called "film type", mystery and suspense as "macro-genres", and film noir as a "screenwriter's pathway" ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
All Movie Guide
AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne. History AllMovie was founded by popular-culture archivist Michael Erlewine, who also founded AllMusic and AllGame. The AllMovie database was licensed to tens of thousands of distributors and retailers for point-of-sale systems, websites and kiosks. The AllMovie database is comprehensive, including basic product information, cast and production credits, plot synopsis, professional reviews, biographies, relational links and more. AllMovie data was accessed on the web at the AllMovie website. It was also available via the AMG LASSO media recognition service, which can automatically recognize DVDs. In late 2007, TiVo Corporation acquired AMG for a reported $72 million. The AMG consumer facing web properties AllMusic.com, AllMovie.com and AllGame.com were sold by Rovi in August 2013 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
