A-Z Challenge 2013: L is for Lucinda Dickey!

It's not the Twelve Days of Christmas, but it is the Twelfth Post in the April 2013 A-Z Blogging Challenge - and you'll have to pardon me - I might swoon - because...

L is for Lucinda Dickey!

If you were one of the readers of my late, lamented Mad Mike's Multitudinous Maniacal Movies newsletter many moons ago, you might remember that I watched the movies Breakin' and Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo because I was trying to see everything Joe Bob Briggs reviewed in his first two books. And after seeing those two classic Cannon flicks, I fell head over heels for their star Lucinda Dickey and named her the first Mad Mike Fabulous Babe award winner.

    I obsessed a bit over her at the time, and set out to find every frame of film I could on her. In those prehistoric days before the internet, just about the only resource for something like this was a huge three ring binder they used to have in pretty much all video stores that listed all actors and actresses alphabetically and then listed their movies. This thing was updated periodically by sending in new binder sheets that had to be manhandled into the binder. It wasn't the most complete or accurate thing in the world, but it was all we had. And that thing only listed Lucinda Dickey in four movies: the aforementioned Breakin' movies, Ninja III: The Domination, and Cheerleader Camp. Strangely, I had seen Ninja III on video - missed it in the theater because the night we went to see it Avenging Angel was also playing, and having heard from classmates about it, my pal Richard pulled for AA instead, so we went to see that. Why we didn't double feature them I will never know - and don't get me wrong, Avenging Angel was a fine piece of 80's Cinema Cheese, so we had a good time.


    But I digress.

I hate digressions.

    So, I saw Ninja III on video, but Ms. Dickey didn't catch my eye in that picture like she did in the Breakin' movies. But I sure went back to it, and tracked down Cheerleader Camp as well. And after that, the mystery of her disappearance from film and TV drove me crazy. It got so bad that I actually wrote a screenplay about the whole thing, using a thinly disguised Lucinda Dickey stand-in for a story of a young video store clerk (like I was at the time) obsessed with an actress who's made four movies and disappeared. Then she shows up in his life, but in a crazy way that could be the result of a head injury on the part of the video clerk, so the whole first half of the movie is a tease about whether she's really there or not. When I got to the second half of the script I got hung up on which of two directions to go with the movie - sappy drama or silly comedy, and the whole thing stalled out. (I'm still interested in the story, so if anyone wants to jump in and help me figure it out - I could still finish the thing!)

    Years pass, Al Gore finished inventing the internet, and the IMDB is born. I check out Ms. Dickey's entries, and along with the four known movies it lists her in an uncredited role on a Perry Mason NBC TV movie in the early 90's, but I dismiss this and continue with my solitary obsession. I hoped she had simply tired of the business, maybe married and started a family. I hoped she hadn't gone down some darker road, like drugs or something worse. But there was no way to find out, it seemed.

Well, time has passed - and Ms. Lucinda Dickey turned back up! She was a judge on a dancing reality series hosted by my old buddy Joey Lawrence - and she still looks freaking amazing.

A couple of other notes - she is in Grease 2 a lot - uncredited background dancer but highly visible from what I hear. And it turns out that was her in the Perry Mason telefilm - an attempt to keep her toe in the business after leaving it to start a family - another happy event - but she didn't have a good time and checked back out after that until her kids got older and she got the itch again.

Vive le Lucinda Dickey!

Mmmm, let's do this again tomorrow, what do you say? Until then, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!