Features
Classic TV Heroines: Teresa Graves in Get Christie Love
Also working undercover for the LAPD–at about the same time Angie Dickinson was on the force–was the blacksploitated Christie Love. Massively Afro-coiffed and dressed to the nines, she kicked gangsta booty way back in the day (1974, to be exact) before there even was gangsta booty.
Some might call her Shaft with polyester stretch pants, but Love was more of a Dirty Harry type. You know the drill: a maverick who played by her own rules, despite the grousing of hard-nosed Lt. Matt Reardon (Charles Cioffi).
Yeah, the system stank, but the action-packed Love came up smellin’ like a rose. The higher-ups gave her trivial assignments to keep her busy, but “safe” diversions like wino wrangling always dovetailed into big-time drug busts for this streetwise cop with attitude
Prone to wack hoodlums with her handbag and slap on the cuffs with a sassy, “You’re under arrest, Sugar,” this Love-fest inexplicably lasted only one season.
You’d think the sexy supercop would’ve been a welcome alternative to the flat-footed flatfoots like 300-pound Frank Cannon, wheelchair bound Ironsides and doddering old Barnaby Jones, but go figure.