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| Killer face card winner Victoria Dillard. |
Happy birthday to our Fem Film Rogue Icon Victoria Dillard, the It Girl of the 1990’s. Memorable lean, statuesque, and gorgeous with a distinctive voice, phenomenal grace, and impressive talents in both drama and comedy, Dillard’s sassy vixen characters lit the silver and big screen. She starred in roles alongside elite Black Hollywood names— Denzel Washington, Lawrence Fishbourne, Alfre Woodard, Kimberly Elise, Monica Calhoun, and LL Cool J.
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| Victoria Dillard got to move around a few gorgeous seconds as a ballerina on a starship. |
New York born and raised Victoria Dillard was a born graceful entertainer, dancing with the Dance Theatre of Harlem from age five to eighteen. Her first onscreen IMDb credit was a nameless star fleet crew member who imagined herself as a ballerina in
Star Trek: The Next Generation’s season one’s sixth episode,
Where No One Has Gone Before. She spoke no dialogue.
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| Beautiful Victoria stealing the film in Coming to America. |
Dillard’s next role as a scandalous nameless royal bather / dancer utters a foul line that only misogyny could write in Coming to America. It may have left behind a bitter taste, something of which reveals how brown and darker skinned women (including Vanessa Bell Calloway and Allison Dean) are portrayed through the problematic Black male gaze. However, at only twenty-one-years-old, Dillard was an undeniably captivating beauty who ate up the screen time.
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| Alice in Ricochet. DP: Peter Levy. |
Afterwards, Dillard costarred in Ricochet as Denzel Washington’s wife, Alice Styles.
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| Betty McCutchen’s Art and Africa Gallery in Deep Cover. DP: Bijan Bezzali. |
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| Betty (Victoria Dillard) and David (Jeff Goldblum) in Deep Cover. DP: Bijan Bizzeli. |
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| Terrified Betty believing her life was in danger. DP: Bijan Bezzali. |
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| Betty (Victoria Dillard) cupping Russell’s (Laurence Fishbourne) face in her place of business. DP: Bijan Bizzeli. |
Dillard then worked with brilliant Black filmmakers the great Bill Duke and the renowned Oscar inductee Charles Burnett (a favorite).
In Duke’s stylishly sleek police thriller Deep Cover, Dillard plays sophisticated art dealer Betty McCutcheon who specializes in African art and artifacts and has a taste for fine, high-class things including drugs. Although Dillard’s character arrives midway through the film, she has commendable chemistry with Laurence Fishbourne and Jeff Goldblum, holding her own against two acting heavyweights.
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| Barbara (Victoria Dillard) dropping her man J. J. (Michael Boatman) off at his new job. DP: Elliot Davis. |
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| A kiss for good luck. DP: Elliot Davis. |
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| At a wedding, family members hope J. J. will pop the question and it seems that a wistful Barbara feels the same. DP: Elliot Davis. |
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| Barbara overhears J. J. saying that she isn’t going anywhere. *sighs* DP: Elliot Davis. |
Whereas in Burnett’s police drama The Glass Shield, Dillard plays Barbara Simms the girlfriend of new cop J. J. Johnson (Michael Boatman, Dillard’s future costar in Spin City). The film is about a racist, sexist police department and one man’s desire to be liked by terrible men.
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| Janelle Cooper was a constant breath of fresh air on Spin City, bouncing off Michael J. Fox’s Mike Flaherty so well. The show was never the same once they left in season four. |
On the sitcom Spin City, Dillard played the snazzy assistant Janelle Cooper who didn’t always have a lot of lines, but packed a punch whenever the cameras laid upon her. Dillard also worked with three women filmmakers: Carol Mayes TV movie Commitments costarring Allen Payne and the late Virginia Capers, Debbi Allen’s Out of Sync costarring LL Cool J, and Nandi Bowe’s hard-to-find short film Statistically Speaking (adding to this list) costarring Alfre Woodard and the late Roxie Roker.
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| Fox Giovanni in Carol Mayes’s BET TV film Commitments was such a well-rounded character and gave Dillard an opportunity to prove herself as its leading star. DP: John L. Demps Jr. |
With only twenty-seven credits to her name and no awards nominations (not even the NAACP Image Awards), the former actress now advocate for Parkinson’s research was diagnosed with the disease at thirty-eight-years-old, right during the cusp of her brilliant career. Like Lark Voorhies and
Lisa Nicole Carson, Victoria Dillard continues the brave conversation Black actresses are sharing on the darker side of having health problems in Hollywood, how these noticeable events not only affects their personal lives, it is a career killer preventing them from advancing onto bigger, juicier roles.
Dillard still dances whenever she can, not letting this neurological diagnosis take away the dignified strength that has been ingrained since her upbringing. Although most of her roles were supporting, Dillard remains a significant part of Black culture, a strong, gracious presence whose beloved characters could be vulnerable, soft, intelligent, funny, and insightful.
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| Victoria Dillard for American Parkinson’s Disease Association (APDA). |
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| Victoria Dillard for American Parkinson’s Disease Association (APDA). |
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| Victoria Dillard for American Parkinson’s Disease Association (APDA). |
Victoria Dillard Quote
“I know that I can’t expect it to be the same way everyday. I might have different tremors that affect me more than other days. Parkinson’s has inspired me to be realistic, authentic, and honest about my day to day life, my day to day challenges.”
