Dorothi Fox
In the 1971 comedy Bananas, Dorothi Fox is credited as J. Edgar Hoover. That is the entire joke, and it is the sort of casting that tells you what kind of performer a director had in front of him: someone who could hold a straight face inside an absurd premise.
Born in New York City, she began in African-American theatre before moving into film in the 1970s, appearing in blaxploitation pictures including Come Back, Charleston Blue in 1972, in The Wiz in 1978, and in the 1975 political thriller Three Days of the Condor. Of those, only The Wiz is among the credits listed here. Her work continued into the twenty-first century, including television productions such as the Onion News Network.
What this page mostly holds is the later New York career, and it deserves saying plainly: these are one-scene parts, listed as Woman, Nervous Old Woman, Female Clerk, Elderly Woman in Hospital. Before We Go in 2014, Run All Night in 2015, Good Time and Rough Night in 2017, and Ronnie in Lez Bomb in 2018. Turning up for five decades of New York productions, mostly in roles too small to be named, is its own sort of career, and the record here is thin because the industry recorded it thinly.
Movies (7)
Where to start with Dorothi Fox
Come for Bananas. Her appearance is short, deadpan and one of the best sight gags in the film, and it is the only credit on this list where the casting itself is the punchline.
The Wiz is the other historically interesting one, a big-budget musical from the tail of the era that gave her most of her early screen work.
Then the modern New York run, which is worth a look if you like recognising faces in the background of good films. Good Time is the best film of that group by a distance, Run All Night the most competent thriller, Rough Night the broadest comedy, and Lez Bomb gives her the rare luxury of a character with a name.