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Who's the actress?


Does anyone know the name of the actress who played "Allison Carter," the "stuck-up white bitch" heroin addict the angry black guy victimizes?

I can account for every female name in the imdb.com cast list, and this character is not there. I saw the actress on television twice, on "Adam-12" (early 1970s, about the same time as "Ginger" was made) and "Hill Street Blues" (early 1980s). Duane Tucker, who played the gang leader, also showed up on "Hill Street Blues" (rather gaunt, as I remember), as some kind of co-worker of a character played by the porn actor Harry Reems.

And can anyone identify the character Shelly Desai played in "Ginger"?

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Apparently the name of the actress who played Allison Carter is Herndon Ely. She must have gone by another name for the TV appearances mentioned.

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There is an interesting connection between the Ginger movies, Hill Street Blues, and Adam-12. Hill Street Blues featured Tracy Walter, Duane Tucker, Herndon Ely, and Shelly Desai from "Ginger," as well as Laurie Rose and Herb Stryker (aka Harry Reems) from "The Abductors"). Herndon Ely, Tim Brown ("Girls Are for Loving), and Laurie Rose appeared on Adam-12.

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I know that this post comes nearly four years after yours, but...

You say that you can account for every female name on the IMDb cast list? I see a large number of female (and male) actor names, without the characters they were playing. If you (or someone else) would not mind filling this information in, I would be grateful.

John

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Michele Norris played "Vicki," the girl Ginger fought on the beach. (She made one other movie.)
Linda Susoeff played "Cathy," the girl who turned against the gang and was murdered. (She made no other movies.)
Lise Mauer played "Liz," the girl who bragged about her Siamese cats. (Also no other movies.)
Cindy Barnett played "Jean," the girl who whined, "You don't have fun in jail, Rex!" (Only one other movie, but you can Google to find pictures of her.)
Herndon Ely was in only that one (awful) scene and one throw-away movie, though she appeared on Adam-12 and Hill Street Blues, probably under another name.

You will notice that in the three-way split screen near the beginning, a good-looking woman appears to be taking a payoff, but she never shows up after that. Too bad.

It's very difficult to identify the various men, since most of them never appeared in anything else. Shelly Desai has had a good mainstream career, but I can't recognize him anywhere in "Ginger." Tracey Walter is of course well known today, but even though I know he played Ginger's brother in the flashback, I wouldn't know it was he.

I'm pretty sure I saw the angry black guy on some TV show years later, playing an Air Force general (!).

I know I saw Cheri Caffaro in another movie not listed, made I suspect before "Ginger." She had short, very dark hair. Can't remember the title of the picture, but I remember that it was a low-budget bore.

I believe that at least some of the people who made the "Ginger" movies were into some weird stuff, with a few belonging to a kind of cult, something on the order of Moonies or Hare Krishnas, though not those specifically. It's not hard to see that most of them were not actors.

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The movie that you're referring to when you mention Cheri Caffaro made before "Ginger" in which she had short dark hair was called "Love Is A Four-Letter-Word."

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Actually alors, it think it might have been "Love in a Four-Letter World," an easily confused title. "Love Is a Four-Letter Word" was made in 1966 by Lee Frost, and Cheri Caffaro is definitely not in that. (For many years, it was thought to be lost forever, but it was found and is now available on DVD as "The Love Girls.")

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«You will notice that in the three-way split screen near the beginning, a good-looking woman appears to be taking a payoff, but she never shows up after that. Too bad.»

I believe she is Vicki, played by Michele Norris, the black hair girl who is first addressed by Rex in the subsequent scene. The two other characters in the split screen are Jimmy, and Liz - thus illustrating the three evils mentioned by Jason in his dialog with Ginger: prostitution, drugs, and blackmail. Later, Jason arrests Vicki after making her believe that he's just another john.

Hair-styles and hair-shades make for difficult character identification in this movie.

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Yes, Artemis, Vicki is the girl on the left. It is the girl in the center frame I was citing as not appearing later. She is apparently receiving a blackmail payment from a wealthy corporate type.

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Sorry that I missed the girl you were asking about.

As I wrote before, «The two other characters in the split screen are Jimmy, and Liz», and as you correctly pair the girl you're interested in as the girl taking «a blackmail payment from a wealthy corporate type», I would say the answer to your initial question is:

Lise Mauer, playing Elizabeth Anderson, or Liz, the character linked with the «evil» of blackmail.

It would be illogical otherwise, but I can't go back to the film now. Besides, I was never familiar with the supporting actresses of that period.

By the way, imdb does not carry the title "Love in a Four Letter Word", and I never heard of such.

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Shelly Desai played the "john" to whom Cindy Barnett says, "You take care of dinner; I'll take care of later."

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A bit late to the party, but I just saw the movie...
http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/nytimes/obituary.aspx?n=herndon-ely&pid=112007294

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