Jim Brown, the NFL titan who appeared in “The Dirty Dozen,” a number of Blaxploitation films and Oliver Stone’s “Any Given Sunday,” The Running Man,” Tim Burton’s “Mars Attacks” and Spike Lee’s “He Got Game,” to name a few films, has died. He was 87.
His wife Monique posted the news of hisIn nine extraordinary seasons as a fullback with the Cleveland Browns, Brown set an array of NFL records. In 2002 the Sporting News named him the greatest professional football player ever. That phenomenal athleticism and a charismatic personality made him bankable as the first African American action star.
Next was the far meatier “Riot,” Buzz Kulik’s grim, realistic prison drama in which Brown starred with Gene Hackman. Roger Ebert was underwhelmed by the film but declared: “‘Riot’ does demonstrate in Brown’s case that he can now move on from simple action roles to more challenging parts. He has an easy, humorous way of delivering a line that wins spontaneous approval from the audience.”
Brown, Williamson and Kelly were reteamed the next year in a largely bland spaghetti Western called “Take a Hard Ride” in which the villains, led by Lee Van Cleef, were mostly white; the film was released not by one of the exploitation distributors but by 20th Century Fox. During the early to mid-’80s Brown made appearances on TV shows including “CHiPs,” “Knight Rider,” “T.J. Hooker” and “The A-Team.”
In Spike Lee’s 1998 film “He Got Game,” starring Denzel Washington and the NBA’s Ray Allen, Brown played a parole officer. Brown was selected to the Pro Bowl every year from 1957-65; in 1957 he was NFL rookie of the year, as voted by several organizations, as well as NFL MVP. He was also named MVP in 1958, 1963 and 1965.
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