The daughter of comedy legend Tommy Chong, Rae Dawn Chong is a talented actress in her own right who first rose to prominence in the 1980s. Though many would have assumed Chong would follow in her funnyman father’s footsteps, she opted to embrace a more dramatic career path and landed noteworthy roles in lauded films like Quest for Fire, Beat Street, and The Color Purple. She famously starred opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the explosive action flick Commando, further establishing herself as a diverse talent.
Despite appearing in a string of critically-acclaimed projects, Chong’s Hollywood career began to slow down by the 1990s but she nonetheless remained a busy performer. Loyal fans of the actress have kept up with her many television and film roles since her spectacular rise to fame in the '80s. Let’s dive in and look at some of Rae Dawn Chong’s best performances.
9 Tales from the Darkside: The Movie
A spin-off of George A. Romero's '80s comedy horror anthology series of the same name, 1990'sTales from the Darkside: The Movie centers on the unlucky paperboy Timmy who is kidnapped and held by the evil and hungry modern-day witch Betty, as she plans to cook and serve the boy as the main course to her fellow witch friends. In order to buy himself time and to plot an escape, the kid tells Betty three spine-tingling stories to distract her (based on the works of legendary authors like Stephen King and Arthur Conan Doyle).
Rae Dawn Chong appears in the segment Lover's Vow, portraying a beautiful and mysterious stranger a struggling artist meets after witnessing a terrifying attack by a gargoyle, though the woman is not what she seems. With an additional cast including Christian Slater, Steve Buscemi, and Deborah Harry, the horror flick was a modest success at the box office but remains an underrated classic of the genre.
8 Beat Street
Chronicling the efforts of South Bronx brothers and hip hop lovers Kenny and Lee as they attempt to make it in the music world, the 1984 dance drama Beat Street highlights their quest to showcase the musical style and culture to the masses in hopes of achieving their dreams. Chong portrays talented choreographer and composer Tracy who meets the siblings and offers them a chance to gain national attention with a performance on live television, bonding with Kenny throughout the process. The exciting film helped introduce and popularize the hip-hop scene across not only the country but the world and had a huge influence on the budding movement in Germany.
7 Impeachment: American Crime Story
Chong took on the role of Bill Clinton's personal secretary Betty Curie in the 2021 true-crime anthology series Impeachment: American Crime Story, which recounts the shocking events that transpired during the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal that rocked the world in the late 1990s.
Based on Jeffrey Toobin's book and account of the notorious historical affair and Clinton's later impeachment, the show stars Beanie Feldstein as Monica Lewinsky and Clive Owen as President Bill Clinton, respectively, and earned praise for its historical accuracy and phenomenal cast performances. Impeachment won a Primetime Creative Arts Emmy Award and garnered a Golden Globe and multiple Satellite Award nods.
6 American Flyers
In the 1985 sports drama American Flyers, Kevin Costner and David Grant appear as estranged brothers Marcus and David, who attempt to let go of their differences after discovering they are prone to having a cerebral aneurysm like their late father and decide to spend time together and enter a demanding cycling race as a way to bond. Chong appears as Marcus' girlfriend Sarah, who encourages the duo to reconnect and goes along with them on their cross-country quest to participate in a bicycle race in Colorado. The inspirational flick features winning chemistry between Chong and Costner and was praised as an uplifting family drama that also highlighted the thrills of the underappreciated sport.
5 Stony Island
Rae Dawn Chong made her big-screen debut when she starred in the 1978 musical drama Stony Island, which follows two struggling but gifted musicians who form a rhythm and blues super group alongside a legendary saxophone great, with hopes of finally making it big in the music business. Chong was able to showcase both her impressive acting prowess and singing skills in the engrossing film, appearing as the soulful songstress Janetta in the critically-acclaimed drama.
Director Andrew Davis selected the up-and-coming cast partially because they were fresh faces in Hollywood and would provide authenticity and freshness to their roles. On what propelled him to create the lauded flick, Davis once expressed,"Being a kid in Chicago and seeing American Graffiti, I wanted to make a movie about black and white kids working it out together, and music seemed to be a common bond among kids on the South Side. Stony Island is very close to what I wanted but more work than I expected.“
4 Interview with the Vampire
Chong's most recent acting credit was in the 2022 smash hit gothic horror series Interview with the Vampire, an adaptation of the Anne Rice novel that centers on the life and legacy of vampire Louis de Pointe de Lac (Jacob Anderson) as he recounts his extraordinary origins and struggles with immortality to seasoned journalist Daniel Molloy (Eric Bogosian). In the spellbinding series, Chong had a recurring role as Florence de Pointe du Lac, Louis' human mother whom he has a complicated and tense relationship with due to his involvement with Lestat de Lioncour (Sam Reid) and her profound grief over losing her other son.
Chong was a fan of the popular Rice novel and connected with its depiction of eternal life, and to get a feel for the character she visited the Creole Museum in New Orleans to study how the group lived from historians and what they experienced during the time period. When discussing her stint on the show, the actress stated, "I'm so delighted that I got to do that and got to go be in New Orleans a lot and hang out with such a wonderful cast, and I loved our directors. Everything was exciting. It was just totally wonderful."
3 Commando
Action icon Arnold Schwarzenegger starred as the ultimate butt-kicker and wisecracker Colonel John Matrix in the 1985 big-screen extravaganza Commando, in which the retired Special Forces veteran goes head-to-head against a group of mercenaries led by one of his former team members after his young daughter Jenny (Alyssa Milano) is kidnapped. His friend-turned-nemesis Captain Bennett plans on using Jenny as leverage in order to force Matrix to commit a political assassination, so the skilled special agent is given unexpected help by flight attendant Cindy (Chong) to rescue his daughter.
Commando was praised for its stellar blend of epic action sequences and side-splitting humor, with Schwarzenegger's charisma on full display in the explosive flick. Despite the role of Cindy originally being written for a white woman, and attracting over 40 actresses like Sharon Stone to audition, Chong helped break race barriers in Hollywood by landing the role. Director Mark L. Lester later commented, "She was the most comedic, and did the best reading. We were way ahead of our time in that way."
2 The Color Purple
In Steven Spielberg's phenomenal adaptation of Alice Walker's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Color Purple, Whoopie Goldberg was brilliant as the young African-American woman Celie Harris, with the riveting drama chronicling the protagonist's life in the South as she endures tremendous racism and brutal abuse at the hands of her sadistic husband "Mister" (Donald Glover). With a superb ensemble cast including Oprah Winfrey, Margaret Avery, and Laurence Fishburne, Rae Dawn Chong delivered one of the finest performances of her career when she portrayed the timid Mary "Squeak" Agnes in the lauded picture.
The Color Purple was an influential and groundbreaking moment for Black actors in the industry and ultimately went on to garner ten Oscar nominations and a Golden Globe win. When looking back on her work in the poignant picture, Chong said the following.
"It was a pretty popular audition. At the time were not many Afrocentric films so it was an event. Plus it was Spielberg. Not much fiction gets written about us so it’s important to read it...I auditioned specifically for Squeak because she was the only one that was mixed. I liked the fact that she was a hero and went to the jail to rescue Sophia."
1 Quest for Fire
Chong won the Genie Award for Best Actress when she starred as a prehistoric young woman who holds the knowledge to provide a crucial flame for a tribe in the 1981 fantasy adventure film Quest for Fire, centering on a trio of cavemen (Ron Perlman, Everett McGill, and Nameer El-Kadi) as they journey across the dangerous lands in search of a new source for fire, stumbling upon the all-knowing Ika (Chong) in the process. Based on the J.-H Rosny novel of the same name, the picture features Chong in her most raved-about performance yet, with the actress demonstrating her impeccable range and power as a storyteller.
Quest for Fire won both an Oscar and two Saturn Awards (including Best International Picture) and served as a major turning point in Chong's career, with the role leading to future projects. In their glowing review of the film, the New York Times wrote, "Quest for Fire is more than just a hugely enterprising science lesson, although it certainly is that. It's also a touching, funny and suspenseful drama about prehumans."
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