Karen Russell
History
Karen Russell was a buxom, shapely, and voluptuous brunette actress and dancer who popped up with pleasing regularity in a handful of entertainingly trashy low-budget straight-to-video exploitation pictures made throughout the 1980's and 1990's. Karen made a memorable film debut as nasty street gang moll Chula in the brutal urban action opus "Tenement." She was quite funny and appealing as the ditsy Shawnee in the crudely amusing "Vice Academy." Russell's other noteworthy parts include sweet, but troubled Mafia princess Amy in the gloriously outrageous "Murder Weapon," motorcycle mama Candy in "Easy Wheels," naive hooker Fran in the hugely enjoyable "The Banker," cop Francesco Quinn's bitter estranged ex-wife Isabella in "Murder Blues," and lusty groupie Michelle in "Shock 'Em Dead." Moreover, Karen appeared in small roles as a dancer in the mainstream features "Dick Tracy," "Havana," "Mobsters," and "Bugsy." After calling it a day as an actress in the mid-1990's, Russell went on to become a yoga teacher and founder of her own business Yoga Groove based in North Hollywood, California.
Showgirl
Diva Las Vegas was a show at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas starring Bette Midler performing as singer and comedian. The one-time performance was filmed for television; HBO released it as a TV special originally broadcast on January 18, 1997 and repeated on February 2, 1997. Midler won the 1997 Primetime Emmy Award for Individual Performance in a Variety or Music Program for the special. Among the songs performed were The Rose, Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy, From A Distance, Friends, Wind Beneath My Wings, Stay With Me and Do You Want To Dance?. Bette's daughter Sophie von Haselberg appeared for a short time during the song "Ukulele Lady". She sat with the rest of the cast and musicians on stage playing a ukulele and singing the words.
Action-fantasy.
Dancer
New York gangster Ben 'Bugsy' Siegel takes a brief business trip to Los Angeles. A sharp-dressing womanizer with a foul temper, Siegel doesn't hesitate to kill or maim anyone crossing him. In L.A. the life, the movies, and most of all strong-willed Virginia Hill detain him while his family wait back home. Then a trip to a run-down gambling joint at a spot in the desert known as Las Vegas gives him his big idea.
Coco
A criminal mob hires a gang of thugs to subdue a small urban community, but the community decides to fight back.
Showgirl
The story of a group of friends in turn of the century New York, from their early days as street hoods to their rise in the world of organized crime...
Michelle
Martin is a total loser, who nobody cares for. When he fails to get a position as guitar player in Lindsay's band and loses his job on the way, he makes a deal with a Voodoo priestess. She promises him the fulfillment of all his dreams if he swears obedience to her. He becomes a rock star and has many women - but to stay alive, he has to kill other people.
Herself / Actress
A documentary about special makeup effects on low budget horror films. Includes behind-the-scenes footage from Murder Weapon (1989), Robot Ninja (1989), Ghoul School (1990) and Skinned Alive (1990).
Isabella
A detective becomes obsessed with bringing a man to justice, whom he is sure is a serial killer and the murderer of a woman with which both men were involved. However, the supposed killer may be as much a victim as the murdered people.
Mary
A nerd becomes the head of his father's crime family.
Lisa
A brainy girl turns bimbo and a football star turns brainy in order to attract each other's attention, only to discover that they liked each other the way they were in the first place.
Dancer
The comic strip detective finds his life vastly complicated when Breathless Mahoney makes advances towards him while he is trying to battle Big Boy Caprice's united mob.
Cathy
Two detectives are out to nail a gang of teenagers who have run wild through the city and brutally raped a woman.
Fran
High-priced prostitutes are being systematically murdered, their corpses mutilated, and a bizarre South American symbol painted in blood is found at the scene. The cop investigating is out to solve the crime before his ex wife, a reporter, becomes the next victim.
Amy
Two daughters of mobsters get out of the sanitarium after having killed a boyfriend in the shower, supposedly cured and on the right track. They hold a party and invite all their old boyfriends, making all of them think there is still hope for a relationship. Then the boyfriends start disappearing one by one.
Coed #2
When the mysterious and sexy Ms. Xenobia takes over the biology class at the local college, the dating life of supergeek Wesley Littlejohn takes a serious turn. Littlejohn agrees to be a lab rat for the professor's unusual vitamin research study. Now, thanks to some out-of-this-world supplements, he's been transformed into the campus stud. But Xenobia has ulterior extraterrestrial motives in this sci-fi sex comedy.
Candy
A group of leather-clad bikers are on the trail of the female bikers who are stealing babies all over the state and selling them on the black market.
Shawnee
This tale tells the story of female police cadets training to join the Hollywood vice squad. During training, the toothsome rookies are assigned to infiltrate a kiddy porn operation. Next they must go undercover and join a prostitution ring.
Teen Girl
A teacher still haunted by the death of two teens that she accidentally caused as a young girl goes berserk when four teens start harassing her and then attack her in her home.
Mona
Roy is killed by a couple of jewel thieves and then brought back to life and possessed by deceased serial killer "Blade". He returns home and his mother is not very happy to see him as she wants to collect his life insurance policy. Soon, things get out of hand as mom is trying to make sure nobody knows that Roy has "come back" and Blade is trying to let everybody know that he has "come back".
Hooker #1
Ex-San Francisco vice cop Samantha Roarke and Hollywood homicide detective Ryan Hayes team up to investigate an international drug cartel in Los Angeles, leading them to an ex-CIA operative turned drug kingpin who's organizing a heroin distribution center in the city.
Mohawk (as Dusty Woods)
Big hair, big guns, big personalities, and a serious lack of wardrobe. She-Wolves of the Wasteland, a post-apocalyptic story that features women--lots and lots of women--who leave little to the imagination as they battle each other in various junkyards and gravel pits to determine the fate of the entire world.
Emily (as Dusty Woods)
Campers on a holiday are terrorized by an axe-wielding maniac.
Topless Woman
A bandleader whose career is nosediving makes a deal with the owner of a bar to sell his soul for success.
Chula
A drug-dealing band of violent street thugs terrorize the tenants of a South Bronx apartment building.
