 She is believed to have been discovered by director Jack Hill, who cast her in his women-in-prison films "The Big Doll House" (1971) and "The Big Bird Cage" (1972).While under contract at AIP, she became a staple of early 1970s blaxploitation movies, playing big, bold, assertive women, beginning with Jack Hill's "Coffy" (1973), in which she plays a nurse who seeks revenge on drug dealers.Her character was advertised in the trailer as the "baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town!"