LYNN BORDEN ON BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA

Lynn Borden Interview

LYNN BORDEN played a lusty guard in the low budget import BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA with Pam Grier as a woman imprisoned overseas... The White Mama doesn't refer to Lynn's character... 

She's only in the first act as she bullies two sexy vixens stuck in a hellish prison, before Pam and a white inmate take to the road, handcuffed together like THE DEFIANT ONES... But off-screen, Lynn had her own melodrama when she fell upon bad luck, weeks before she would appear in WALKING TALL back home...

You were in BLACK MAMA, WHITE MAMA, which was shot in the Philippines…

Lynn Borden

Oh was it ever… It was shot in the Philippines and they were having an uproar over there, and they declared Marshall Law while we were making the movie.

We had a bulletproof car, bulletproof glass and all that. Every time we went anywhere… when we went to shoot something or whatever… we had to have that, and we were guarded and everything else. And we’d just go through – they would be shooting in some certain place, and we would go by and say, “We’re making a film,” and we’d just go right on. It was amazing.

Lynn Borden

And then we’d finish… We’d get back to the hotel and we were really careful what we ate – because they had typhoid fever. And of course I got it. I didn’t know I had it. I didn’t know because I didn’t know what… I just didn’t know I had it.

But I knew that I was gonna start WALKING TALL [with Joe Don Baker] in another couple weeks, and I had to get out of there. I had to finish the film and get back to the U.S., and then get to Tennessee to do WALKING TALL.

Lynn Borden

And I remember when they finally said, “Okay you can…” You know… They can send me home. And they said there aren’t going to be any planes going back to the U.S. And I’m going, “Oh my God, I’ve just lost this great part in WALKING TALL, and I’m sick and all of this.” So finally there was one plane that was leaving, and first they were gonna go to Australia, and then go from Australia to LA, but luckily I got out.

Lynn Borden

And I saved all the newspapers with all these little, you know… about what kind of typhoid and what was going on. And when I got home I went to the doctor and said, “This is what was going on and I gotta get well.”

So he saw the test, and said, “Thank you for keeping these records because this helps me tell what…”

I guess there’re different types of it. So he told me what kind I had and said, “You’re not gonna give this to anybody, you’re past that.” So he said, “Don’t tell anyone you have it, just keep your mouth closed. And no one will know, but everybody will be fine.”

Pam Grier & Lynn Borden

You played a bullying prison guard in this movie…

I also played a lesbian… That was so far from me, so I thought… I called a friend of mine, who’s a writer, and said, “You gotta help me understand this role.” So we went to a few bars… And things like that, he took me… So I did a lot of research on that kind of thing [laughs]. So it was fun to do because it was different for me. It was a challenge.

Slapped Silly

And your character sets her sites on Pam Grier…

At one point I slap her. And I didn’t slap her; it was just a few inches away… But it sure looks that way. We were intense and she’s a great gal to work with. She’s got the longest legs I think I’ve ever known. And she said that she had a kid in her neighborhood...

And on the way home from school she would have to run from boys. So she would run – and just run so fast... And I thought that’s really interesting because she was this beautiful girl and had these long legs and could run like a leopard, just really amazing.