Conan the Destroyer: Grace Jones vs Wilt Chamberlain

(From Arnold Schwarzenegger's bio)

Bombaata was [Wilt] Chamberlain’s first movie role.

[....]

On the [basketball ] court, from 1959 to 1973, he was so powerful and competitive that no one could push him out of the way, and I saw his athleticism in his sword fighting.

But the most interesting fighting took place between him and Grace Jones.

She played a bandit warrior named Zula whose weapon is a fighting stick—with which Grace put two stunt men in the hospital by accident in fight scenes.

I knew her from the Andy Warhol crowd in New York: a six-foot-tall model, performance artist, and music star who could be really fierce.

She spent eighteen months training for this shoot.

She and Chamberlain kept getting into arguments in the makeup trailer about who was really black.

He would refer to her as an African-American, and Grace, born and raised in Jamaica, would just explode. “I’m not African-American, so don’t you call me that!” she’d yell.

Wilt’s and Grace’s arguments were wild. I couldn’t figure out their hostility, but it was there.

“I’m not like you,” she would tell him. “I don’t come from uneducated slaves. I’m from Jamaica, I speak French, my ancestors were never slaves.”

The N-word was thrown around, which shocked me.

Wilt would be saying, “There’s nothing black about me. Don’t give me this crap! I live in Beverly Hills with the white guys, I fuck only white women, I drive the same cars as the white guys, I have money like white guys. So fuck you, you’re the nigger.”

At one point I intervened. “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, guys! Guys, please, this is a makeup trailer; let’s not have those arguments. See, the makeup trailer is supposed to be all about a soothing atmosphere, because you’re getting ready for the scene. So let’s not get agitated here.

Furthermore, have you looked at yourselves in the mirror lately? Because how could you argue you’re not black? I mean, both of you are black!”

And they said, “No, no, you don’t understand, it’s got nothing to do with the color. It’s the attitude, it’s the background.”

The points they made got very, very complicated. They were not really talking about color, they were talking about how different ethnic groups came to America.

There was something comical about seeing two black people accusing each other of being black. We laughed about it later, at the wrap party, and Grace and Wilt got along really well in the end.

They’re both very talented, entertaining people. This was just an argument they had to have.

'Total Recall' by Arnold Schwarzenegger
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B007IL5DXS