Pioneering TV actor starred on 'Peyton Place'

Judy Pace, a pathbreaking model and star of blaxploitation films who appeared in television shows through the 1960s and '70s and the hit made-for-TV movie "Brian's Song," died last week at 83.

- BY CHRISTOPHER GOFFARD

The woman once described by Variety as "the most beautiful black actress in Hollywood" died in her sleep Wednesday while visiting family in Marina del Rey, her family said.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, Pace graduated from Dorsey High School and studied sociology at Los Angeles City College. Her family said she was the first Black woman under contract with Columbia Studios, the first Black bachelorette on "The Dating Game" and the first spokesmodel for Fashion Fair Cosmetics.

She won her first film role in 1963's "13 Frightened Girls" as a diplomat’s daughter but found greater renown as a backstabbing schemer on the ABC soap "Peyton Place" a few years later. In 1970, she won an NAACP Image Award for her role as an unapologetic career woman on the series "The Young Lawyers."