LOS ANGELES (AP) — louis gossett jr. First black man to win Best Supporting Actor Oscar and Emmy for roles in seminal films TV miniseries “Roots” Died. He was 87 years old.
Gossett's cousin, Neil L. Gossett, told The Associated Press that Gossett died in Santa Monica, California. Gossett died Friday morning, according to a statement from his family. His cause of death has not been disclosed.
Gossett's cousin remembered the man she was walking with. nelson mandela He was also a great joke teller and a relative who stood up to and fought against racism with dignity and humor.
“Don't worry about the awards, don't worry about the glitz and glamor, the Rolls-Royces and the big house in Malibu. It's about the humanity of the people he represented,” his cousin said. Ta.
From the Associated Press archives: Louis Gossett Jr. receives the 2020 Hollywood Legacy Award. Louis Gossett Jr., the first black man to win a Best Supporting Actor Oscar and an Emmy Award for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. . He was 87 years old.
Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, where he found success at an early age and was motivated to move forward toward his goals. Academy awards In the case of “An Officer and a Gentleman”.
Gossett broke out on the small screen as a fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries Roots. depicting the brutality of slavery on TV. It featured a wide-ranging cast, including Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton, and John Amos.
Gossett became the third black person to be nominated for an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1983. Gossett won for his performance as an intimidating marine drill instructor in The Officer and a Gentleman, co-starring Richard Gere and Debra Winger. he also golden globe for the same role.
“More than anything, it was a great affirmation of my standing as a black actor,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir, The Actor and the Gentleman.
While he was away from the basketball team due to injury, he earned his first acting credit in the Brooklyn high school production of You Can't Take It with You.
“I was hooked, and so was my audience,” he wrote in his memoirs.
Associated Press correspondent Donna Warder reports that actor Lou Gossett Jr. has died at the age of 87.
His English teacher encouraged him to go to Manhattan to “Take a Giant Step.” He won the role and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at the age of 16.
“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In hindsight, I should have been scared to death going up on that stage, but I wasn’t.”
Gossett attended New York University on scholarships for basketball and theater. He soon began acting and singing on television shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar, and Steve Allen.
Gossett befriended James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau, and Steve McQueen at the Actors Studio branch taught by Frank Silvera.
In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for her role in the Broadway production. “A Raisin in the Sun” with sidney poitierruby dee And Diana Sands.
He became a Broadway star in 1964 when he replaced Billy Daniels as Sammy Davis Jr. in Golden Boy.
Gossett first came to Hollywood in 1961 to make the film version of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He has bitter memories of that trip, where he stayed in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places black people could stay.
In 1968, he returned to Hollywood and played a major role in NBC's first made-for-TV movie, A Companion in Nightmare, starring Melvin Douglas, Anne Baxter, and Patrick O'Neill.
This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Universal Studios lent him a convertible. As he collected his car and headed back to the hotel, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff who ordered him to turn down his radio and raise the roof of his car before releasing him.
Within minutes, eight deputies stopped him, forced him to lean against his car and open the trunk, while they called the rental car company before releasing him.
“I knew I had no choice but to endure this abuse, but it was a terrible way to treat me and I felt humiliated,” Gossett wrote in her memoir. “I realized this was happening because I was black and I was showing off in a luxury car. In their view, I didn't have the right to drive.”
After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer who told him he had violated a law that prohibits walking in residential neighborhoods in Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and said Gossett was chained up. He was trapped in a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually released when his original police car returned.
“Now I was facing racism and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it wasn't going to destroy me.”
Gossett said he was stopped by police on the Pacific Coast Highway in the late 1990s while driving his restored 1986 Rolls-Royce Corniche II. The officer told him that Gossett looked like the person they were looking for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.
He founded the Erasism Foundation to help build a world free of racism.
Gossett had a series of memorable guest appearances on shows such as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad” and “McCloud.” Richard Pryor About the “Partridge Family”.
In August 1969, Gossett was partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when he was invited to the party. Actor Sharon Tate's house. He went home first to take a shower and change his clothes. As he prepared to leave, he saw a news bulletin on television about Tate's murder. She and others were killed Charles Manson's associates That night.
“There must have been a reason why I escaped the bullet,” he wrote.
Lewis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936 in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, to Lewis Sr., a porter, and Helen, a nurse. He later added Junior to his name in honor of his father.
“The Oscar helped me pick good roles in movies like 'Enemy Mine,' 'Sadat,' and 'Iron Eagle,'” Gossett said in Dave Karger's 2024 book, “50 Oscar Nights”.
He said his statue is in storage.
“I'm going to donate it to the library, so I don't have to monitor it,” he says in the book. “You have to be free of that.”
Gossett appeared in television movies such as “The Satchel Page Story'', “Backstairs in the White House'', “The Josephine Baker Story'', which again won a Golden Globe Award, and “Roots Revisited''.
But he said winning the Oscar doesn't change the fact that all of his roles were supporting roles.
He played a stubborn patriarch in this movie. 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.''
Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after winning the Oscar. He went to a rehab facility where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his home in Malibu.
In 2010, Gossett announced that he had prostate cancer, but said it was discovered at an early stage. In 2020, she was hospitalized with COVID-19.
He also leaves behind his son Sati, a producer and director from his second marriage, and Sharon, a chef who adopted his 7-year-old son after seeing him on a TV show about children in desperate situations. His first cousin was Actor Robert Gossett.
Gossett's first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. The second was with Christina Mangosing, who he divorced in 1975, and the third was with actor Cindy James Rees in 1992.
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This article has been corrected based on a statement from her family to report that Gossett died Friday morning, not Thursday night.
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Associated Press writers Mark Kennedy in New York and Christine M. Hall in Nashville, Tennessee, contributed reporting.
