Producer’s Slaying Reflects Violent World of Her Films

As a budding stage and film producer, Ayanna DuLaney worked on the so-called blaxploitation films that reflected the violent drug underworld of urban America in the 1970s.

On Aug. 31, her life ended suddenly when she stepped into the real world she had once dramatized. DuLaney was fatally shot while walking through a neighborhood known for drug-dealing and gang violence.

DuLaney, 51, had been the production coordinator for the 1975 martial arts-gangster film “Dolemite,” a cult favorite that influenced many contemporary hip-hop performers.

DuLaney’s slaying at 1:20 a.m., on a sidewalk in the 700 block of South Westmoreland Avenue, shocked her entertainment industry friends. Cliff Roquemore, her brother and collaborator on films and plays, said he did not believe DuLaney had been a drug user.

What led to DuLaney’s death remains a mystery. Roquemore said she lived in Hollywood, but police believe she had been living at the eastern edge of Koreatown, near where she was killed.

LAPD Det. Andy Cicoria said she was shot on the sidewalk by a gunman who fired from the street, then walked away. Police believe the shooter knew DuLaney, but they do not know what the motive might have been, Cicoria said.

DuLaney grew up in Detroit and studied drama at Wayne State University before moving to Los Angeles in 1972, Roquemore said. DuLaney’s work focused on African American themes.

The film “Dolemite” and its sequel, “The Human Tornado,” which Roquemore directed, followed the exploits of a gun-toting ex-con and nightclub owner who is assisted by a team of exotic dancers who use their taekwondo against rivals. The films were part of a wave of black action movies such as “The Mack” and “Superfly,” which some critics hail as icons of militancy that defied mainstream tastes.

Although DuLaney received little credit for much of her film work, Rudy Ray Moore, who created the Dolemite character and starred in the films, said, “She played a great role in helping us and getting things together.”

Ernie Hudson, who starred in several plays DuLaney produced at the now-closed Inner City Cultural Center in Los Angeles, said he regretted that “we took her for granted in terms of what she brought to shows.”

He added: “I was so busy trying to be a star I got full of myself. She never got back the love she gave.”

DuLaney’s friends and family will recognize her contributions in a memorial service today at the William Grant Still Art Center. Roquemore said that loved ones will celebrate her life’s work through performances, in what may be considered her last production.

When she moved to Los Angeles, DuLaney wrote Roquemore a letter that she said should be opened upon her death. In it, she instructed him to make her funeral festive.

“Treat it like a show,” she wrote, “because the people paid.”