In Passing
Tamara Dobson, the Baltimore-born model-turned-actress best known for her leading role in two films as kung fu-fighting government super-agent Cleopatra Jones, died here Monday from complications of pneumonia and multiple sclerosis. She was 59.
One of four children of a beauty shop operator and railroad clerk, Dobson was a graduate of the city’s Western High School. She studied fashion illustration at the Maryland Institute College of Art and had her first modeling job there in its annual fashion show.
She appeared in magazines including Vogue, Essence and Mademoiselle, was on the cover of Redbook and posed for a fashion spread in Ebony magazine with her hair in her signature Afro style. She was seen in television commercials and served as the face of Faberge’s “Tigress” for several years. She also appeared in ads for Chanel and Revlon.
Her film career began in 1972 with a small role in “Fuzz” as the girlfriend of the deaf man villain played by Yul Brynner.
Her big break came the next year when she was cast in the title role of “Cleopatra Jones,” the first black super-heroine in the “blaxploitation” genre – a striking, fierce and fashion-conscious spy.
Los Angeles
Frances Bergen, model, actress
Frances Bergen, a former model and occasional actress and singer whose show-business career took a back seat to her role as the wife of ventriloquist Edgar Bergen and the mother of their actress daughter, Candice, has died. She was 84.
Bergen died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after a prolonged illness, said family spokeswoman Heidi Schaeffer.
Born Sept. 14, 1922, in Birmingham, Ala., she had moved with her mother to Los Angeles after her father died when she was 10.
In the 1950s, Frances Bergen appeared in several films, including “Titanic,” and had guest roles on television in “Four Star Playhouse,” “Fireside Theatre,” and “The Dick Powell Show.”
She played Madame Francine on “Yancy Derringer,” the short-lived 1958 series starring Jock Mahoney as an ex-Confederate soldier.
Ross, Calif.
William Whalen III, park service leader
William J. Whalen III, a former director of the National Park Service who oversaw the doubling in size of the national park system, has died. He was 66.
Whalen, who led the agency from 1977 to 1980, died of a heart attack Sept. 28 at Marin General Hospital in Ross, Calif., said friend Ruth Kilday.
He was best known for implementing the Alaska Native Lands Claims Settlement Act, which led to the establishment of 10 national parks and expansion of several others in 1980. The 44 million acres effectively doubled the size of the national park system.
Whalen, then 36, was the youngest director in the agency’s history when President Carter appointed him in 1977.
He also oversaw the creation of more than 30 parks, including the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site.