Caught in Cameo

Grace Jones is no leading man’s arm candy. A spear-wielding, ancient African bandit called Zula, on a mission to help Arnold Schwarzenegger's Conan the Destroyer retrieve a magic horn, perhaps. Or, in A View to a Kill, a bionic Bond girl known as May Day, the superhuman product of a Nazi genetic breeding experiment that gave her uncanny strength and intelligence—at the expense of a psychopathic disposition. Derangement is a common thread in her characters, it seems... As Katrina the prostitute vampire-star of Vamp, she hypnotizes with a demonic striptease; covered head-to-toe in swirling Keith Haring body painting, she writhes in the arms of one of the artist’s sculptures before leaping upon the statue and having her wicked way with it. It’s compulsive—if extreme—viewing. The most recent of her more than 15 appearances on screen was in the impressively obscure Falco—Verdammt, Wir Leben Noch!, a 2008 biopic of Austrian one-hit-wonder Falco (whose 1986 single “Rock Me Amadeus” was the first German-language song to top the US Billboard chart). But no celluloid character can really compare to Grace Jones: the androgynous, ageless, enigmatic, 20th century icon.