Max Julien, star of “The Mack” and pioneer of the blaxploitation film style, died Saturday. He was 88 decades old.
The actor, writer and producer’s death was verified New Year’s Working day by his longtime good friend David F. Walker, a comic e-book writer and filmmaker who compensated tribute to Julien on Instagram. Walker did not specify the bring about of demise.
“I satisfied Max again in 1996,” he wrote. “He was a good human remaining, and we had so a lot of awesome discussions. He was good and hilarious and charismatic … R.I.P.”
In the 1973 vintage “The Mack,” Julien played John “Goldie” Mickens, a previously incarcerated guy on a mission to develop into Oakland’s No. 1 pimp. The beloved title also starred comedy legend Richard Pryor as Goldie’s spouse in criminal offense, Slim.
Forty a long time just after “The Mack” premiered, director Michael Campus fondly remembered opening the film exactly where it was shot: Oakland. The groundbreaking film has retained a faithful adhering to and influenced artists these types of as Tupac, Jadakiss, Much too Small, Jay-Z and Quentin Tarantino.
“The initially scene arrived on with Richie and Max and — I am not exaggerating — the total audience stood up and began screaming back again at the display screen,” Campus explained to the Los Angeles Moments in 2013.
“They hardly ever sat down. No one experienced demonstrated that world — no a person had portrayed the black underworld.”
In addition to starring in “The Mack,” Julien is also credited as a author and producer on two other blaxploitation attributes, “Thomasine & Bushrod” and “Cleopatra Jones.” The former starred Julien and Vonetta McGee — who dated in the 1970s — as a pair of Robin Hood-esque outlaws in the Wild West.
Julien appeared in a variety of other compact- and significant-display screen assignments, which includes “The Black Klansman,” “Getting Straight,” “Uptight” and “How to Be a Participant.” His ultimate effectiveness was a guest visual appeal in the early-2000s sitcom “One on A person.”
Off-monitor, Julien was also an creator, sculptor and manner designer. He is survived by his wife, Arabella Chavers Julien.