Connie Strickland

Connie Strickland was a lively, shapely and beautiful blonde actress who was usually cast in secondary roles in a handful of enjoyably down'n'dirty 1970s exploitation pictures. The native Californian appeared as a Breck girl in national ads at the age of nine. Strickland attended UCLA and studied architecture, but eventually quit to pursue a highly successful modeling career. She worked as a Playboy bunny and was a top model in Atlanta, Georgia before making her film debut as unhappy young wife Valerie Holloway in the comedy The Secretary (1972). Connie went on to portray ill-fated water-skier Alice in The Roommates (1973), flighty rich groupie Barbara in Bummer (1973), saucy hostess Patsy in the terrifically trashy The Centerfold Girls (1974), rape victim Teresa in the supremely sleazy Act of Vengeance (1974), and mean mobster William Smith's sweet girlfriend Tina in the funky blaxploitation item Black Samson (1974). Strickland was featured in a photo spread on houseboats in the Caribbean in an issue of "Playboy" magazine. Connie Strickland stopped acting in the mid 1970s and went on to work behind the scenes on a few movies: she was a casting coordinator for Hollywood Harry (1985) and a production assistant on Extreme Prejudice (1987).