AP Los Angeles (USA)
Los Angeles (USA)
Updated Friday, March 29, 2024-15:38
Louis Gossett Jr., the first black man to win an Oscar as a supporting actor in
An Officer and a Gentleman
and
an
Emmy winner
for his role in the influential television miniseries
Roots
, has died at
age
87. .
Neal L. Gossett, Gossett's cousin, informed The Associated Press (AP) that the actor died in Santa Monica, California. A statement from the family said Gossett died Friday morning.
His cause of death was not revealed.
Gossett's cousin remembered
a man who walked alongside Nelson Mandela
and who was also a great joke teller, standing up to and fighting racism with dignity and humor.
Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a Cinderella story but in reverse, with success finding him from an early age and carrying him forward, towards his
Academy Award for
An Officer and a Gentleman.
Gossett broke through to the small screen as
Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries
Roots
, which portrayed the
atrocities of slavery
on television. The cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.
Gossett became the
third black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983
. He won for his performance as the intimidating Navy instructor in
An Officer and a Gentleman
, alongside Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He
also won a Golden Globe for the same role.
"More than anything, it was reaffirmation as a black actor," he wrote in his 2010 memoir,
An Actor and a Gentleman
.
Gossett earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school
production
of
You Can't Take Nothing With You
while he was
sidelined from the basketball team due to injury.
"I was hooked, and so was my audience," he wrote in his memoirs.
His English teacher encouraged him to go to Manhattan to try his hand at
Take a Giant Step.
She got the role and debuted on Broadway in 1953 at age 16.
"I knew too little to be nervous," Gossett wrote. "In retrospect, I should have been scared to death when I went on stage, but I wasn't."
Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on
television shows
hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.
From a cockroach-infested motel to the Beverly Hills Hotel
Gossett befriended James Dean and
studied acting with Marilyn Monroe
,
Martin Landau
and
Steve McQueen
at an
Actors Studio
branch taught by Frank Silvera.
In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for her role in the Broadway production of
A Raisin in the Sun
alongside
Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee
and
Diana Sands
. He continued his path to becoming a Broadway star, replacing Billy Daniels in
Golden Boy
with
Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.
Gossett first went to Hollywood in 1961 to make the film version of A Raisin in the Sun. He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a
cockroach-infested motel
that was one of the
few places that allowed black people.
In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in
Companions in Nightmare
,
NBC's first television movie
that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O'Neal.
This time, Gossett checked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. While driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff's deputy who ordered him to turn down the volume on the radio and raise the roof of the car before letting him go.
Within minutes, he was detained by eight sheriff's deputies, who had him lean against the car and open the trunk while they called the rental car agency before letting him go.
Foundation against racism
"Although I understood that I had no choice but to endure this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel," Gossett wrote in his memoirs. "I realized this was happening because he was black and had been showing off with a luxury car, which, in his opinion, he had no 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 against walking through residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two more officers arrived and Gossett said they They chained him to a tree and handcuffed him for three hours.
In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was stopped by police on Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were looking for, but he recognized Gossett and drove off. .
He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism does not exist.
Gossett made a series of guest appearances on shows such as
Bonanza
,
The Rockford Files,
The Mod Squad,
McCloud
and a memorable performance with Richard Pryor on
The Partridge Family.
In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the
Mamas and the Papas
when they were invited to the home of actress Sharon Tate. He headed home first to shower and change. As he prepared to leave, he saw a report on television about
Tate's murder
. She and others were murdered by Charles Manson's associates that night.
"There had to be a reason for me to escape this bullet," he wrote.
Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a janitor, and Hellen, a nurse. He later
added Jr. to his name in honor of his father.
"The Oscar gave me the ability to cast good roles in movies like
Enemy Mine
,
Sadat
and
Iron Eagle,"
Gossett said in Dave Karger's 2024
book
50 Oscar Nights .
He said the statuette was in storage. "I'm going to donate it to a library so I don't have to keep an eye on it," she said in the book. "I need to be free."
Gossett appeared in television films such as
The Story of Satchel Paige
,
Backstairs at the White House
,
The Josephine Baker Story
, for which she won another Golden Globe, and
Roots Revisited
.
The actor confessed that
winning an Oscar did not change the fact that all his roles were supporting roles.
Louis Gossett Jr., poses with the Oscar for best supporting actor for his role in 'An Officer and a Gentleman'.AP
He played a stubborn patriarch in the 2023 remake of
The
Color
Purple
.
Gossett battled alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after winning his Oscar. In 2010, Gossett announced that she had prostate cancer, which she said was detected in early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with Covid-19.
He is survived by his children Satie, a producer and director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old boy in a television segment about children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.
Gossett's first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second marriage, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975, as did his third to actress Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.