Huggy Bear Narrates Look Back at Vegas High School Riots

Antonio Fargas, who played Huggy Bear on the 1975-79 ABC-TV series Starsky and Hutch, has continued to do all sorts of acting. Everything from Flyguy in the 1988 Keenan Ivory Wayans send-up I'm Gonna Git You Sucka to a recurring role with Everybody Hates Chris.

Recently, there's also the intriguing documentary The Rancho High School Riots, for which Fargas provided the narration. The actor is currently based in Vegas, making it a whole lot easier for director Stan Armstrong to secure his participation.

There is another celebrity connection to the film, which retraces how the campus of Rancho High School in north Las Vegas was plagued by outbreaks of racially tinged violence at the end of the Vietnam War era. Armstrong frames his movie through the lens of the Class of 1971 and interviews, among others, a man who went on to become the current coach of NBA franchise the Memphis Grizzlies (Lionel Hollins).

 

Armstrong teaches African-American studies at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. His other documentaries include Black Confederates: Forgotten Men in Grey and Invisible Las Vegas, a look at the history of predominantly black borough of west Las Vegas.

Additional students interviewed for the film by Armstrong, who also attended the school at that time, include star basketball player Lee Gray and one of Rancho's first black cheerleaders, Louise Randall.

[Stan Armstrong / Desert Rose Productions]