‘Get Christie Love’ Reboot In The Works 40 Years After Teresa Graves Made TV History

Get Christie Love is headed back to ABC. The short-lived 1970s cop drama spawned from an ABC TV movie of the same name will get the reboot treatment courtesy of Vin Diesel. The movie superstar has teamed up with Power creator Courtney Kemp and Debra Martin Chase (The Princess Diaries) for the Get Christie Love TV reboot, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

The original 1974 Get Christie Love TV series was produced by Aaron Spelling and starred Teresa Graves as the drug-busting undercover detective with the sassy catchphrase, “You’re under arrest, sugah.” The ABC crime drama only aired for 24 episodes, but Get Christie Love made a powerful impact in another way. Series star Teresa Graves made history as the first African-American female lead in an hour-long network TV drama. The next female to land a lead role in an hour-long U.S. drama series didn’t come until decades later, when Kerry Washington was cast as the star of Scandal.

According to THR, the revamped Get Christie Love is being described as “an action-packed, music-driven drama that centers on Christie Love, an African-American female CIA agent who leads an elite ops unit.” The series will also feature “an emotional mystery about Christie’s first love — unearthing the truth about this relationship will be the biggest mission impossible of her life.” No actors have been attached to the modern-day version of the series yet.

News of the Get Christie Love reboot has many nostalgic viewers remembering Teresa Graves. The actress was most famous for her role as Christie on Get Christie Love as well as her work on the sketch comedy series Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. While she was a hot TV star in the 1970s, Graves stepped away from the spotlight for good in the early 1980s to focus on her involvement with the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Teresa Graves’ final show business appearance was in a Bob Hope special in 1982.

Sadly, Teresa Graves passed away in 2002 at age 54. The actress was found unconscious in a bedroom of her home after a fire swept through the residence. According to Graves’ obituary in the Los Angeles Times, the fire was caused by a faulty space heater in the back bedroom. A smoke detector in the front of the house went off, but failed to awaken the former TV star.

You can see the intro to the original Get Christie Love TV series below.

[Featured Image by ABC TV | Wikimedia Commons | Public Domain]