Foxy Brown writer-director Jack Hill was the son of a set designer for Warner Brothers and The Walt Disney Studio. Hill's father designed Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland.

As a young musician, Hill earned rent money playing gypsy music at a Hungarian restaurant on the Sunset Strip.

Hill was a classmate of Francis Ford Coppola at UCLA and followed Coppola into work for Roger Corman.

Hill's first screen credit was as a production assistant on Battle Beyond the Sun (1963), a Russian science fiction film retooled for US audiences by American International Pictures using footage shot by Coppola.

Hill worked with Boris Karloff in the aging horror icon's last four films: The Snake People (1971), Chamber of Fear (1972), House of Evil (1968) and Sinister Invasion (1971). The Mexican-financed features made use of Karloff in scenes shot by Hill in Hollywood on sets built by his father. Although Hill was contracted to travel to Mexico to finish these projects, producer Luis Enrique Vergara assigned their completion to various (and cheaper) Mexican directors but never lived to see them completed.

Born in Winston-Salem, North Carolina in 1949, Pamela Suzette Grier is a cousin of football player-turned-actor Rosey Grier.

Like her character in Coffy, Pam Grier's mother, Gwendolyn Samuels, was a registered nurse.

When she was 18, Grier was the first runner-up in the Miss Colorado Universe Contest.

In 1967, Grier relocated from Denver to Los Angeles, where she worked initially as a receptionist in the Hollywood office of American International Pictures.

While a student at UCLA, Grier was a backup singer for Bobby Womack, whose soulful theme for Across 110th Street (1972) would be sampled by director Quentin Tarantino for Grier's comeback vehicle Jackie Brown (1997).

Grier's first starring roles were in movies shot in the Philippines. While on location there, she contracted an almost fatal tropical disease, lost her hair, and went temporarily blind.

Grier was the first African American woman to appear on the cover of Ms. magazine.

Diagnosed with cancer in 1988, Grier was given 18 months to live. She survived, but lost her sister to the disease in 1990.

Of Argentine descent, Terry Carter was born John DeCoste in Brooklyn, New York, in 1928. The name "Terry" came from his love of the popular comic strip "Terry and the Pirates."

As a youth, Carter was in the same Boy Scouts of America troupe as future jazz pianist Cecil Taylor.

In 1965, Carter became the first black TV news anchor, at Boston's WBZ-TV.

While filming Foxy Brown, Carter was a regular member of the cast of the TV detective series McCloud, which ran from 1970 to 1977.

Like his Foxy Brown costars Pam Grier and Terry Carter, Antonio Fargas is of mixed race: Puerto Rican on his father's side and West Indian on his mother's side.

Born in the Bronx and raised in Chelsea, Fargas is one of eleven children.

Fargas' professional acting career began at the age of 14, with a small role in the film The Cool World (1964), which was shot on location in Harlem.

Fargas missed his high school graduation because he was touring Austria in a traveling production of James Baldwin's The Amen Corner.

Fargas' trademark characterization of a street-smart hustler began with a bit in Gordon Parks' Shaft (1971).

After playing a small role in Across 110th Street, Fargas was requested by director Barry Shear to play "Huggy Bear" in the pilot film for the TV series Starsky and Hutch.

Fargas spoofed his streetwise image in Keenan Ivory Wayans' I'm Gonna Git You Sucka (1989), as former "Pimp of the Year" Flyguy.

Cast in the bit role as Antonio Fargas' girlfriend was Sally Ann Stroud, then-wife of character player Don Stroud.

Actor Sid Haig was born Sidney Eddie Mosesian in Fresno, California, in 1939. Haig was his father's given name.

An uncoordinated child, Haig was given dance lessons in hopes of giving him poise.

Haig's first stage role was as The Scarecrow in a school production of The Wizard of Oz.

Like Dustin Hoffman and Gene Hackman, Haig studied acting at the Pasadena Playhouse.

Haig first worked for Jack Hill in the director's UCLA student film, The Host (1960).

In Jackie Brown, Haig appeared as a judge.

In 1973, Bob Minor was the first African-American to join the Stuntman's Association of Motion Pictures. Six years later, he was the association's second vice president.

Minor missed out on appearing with Pam Grier in Jackie Brown when he was seriously injured while performing a stunt in John Landis' Blues Brothers 2000 (1998).

Cast in Foxy Brown as a lesbian bar bully who goes mano a mano with Pam Grier, stunt woman Jeannie Epper later doubled for Lynda Carter on the Wonder Woman TV series. She recently performed stunt work and acted in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 2 (2004).

Sources:
Jack Hill audio commentary, Foxy Brown DVD, MGM Home Entertainment, c® 2001
"#1 Bad Ass: An Interview with Stuntman-Actor Bob Minor," by David Konow, Shock Cinema No. 28, May 2005.
Terry Carter Official Website, www.terrycarter.com
"A Psychotronic Interview with Sid Haig," Psychotronic Video No. 3, 1989.
"Jack Hill: Exploitation Genius," interview by Sean Axmaker, Psychotronic Video No. 13, 1992
"Antonio Juan Fargas: How Huggy Bear Made it to Hollywood Squares," by Anthony Petkovich, Derek Johnson and Chris Davidson, Psychotronic Video No. 15, 1993.
The Official Home of Sid Haig, www.sidhaig.com
Interview: Sid Haig, by John Marcotte, www.badmouth.net, 2004.
The Internet Movie Database

Compiled by Richard Harland Smith