Louis Gossett Jr. poses for a photo at Beau-Ray in New York in May 2016.
Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
hide caption
toggle caption
Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
Louis Gossett Jr. poses for a photo at Beau-Ray in New York in May 2016.
Amy Sussman/Invision/AP
LOS ANGELES – Louis Gossett Jr., the first black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the major TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87 years old.
Gossett’s first cousin was Neil L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died in Santa Monica, California. A statement issued by the family said Gossett died Friday morning. No cause of death was revealed.
Gossett’s cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who was also a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor.
His cousin said, “Don’t care about the awards, don’t care about the glitz and glamour, the Rolls-Royces and the big Malibu houses. It’s about the humanity of the people he stood for.”
Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success coming from an early age and leading to his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman”.
Gossett made a splash on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The huge 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 the award for his performance as an intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” with Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.
“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my status as a black actor,” he wrote in his 2010 memoir, “An Actor and a Gentleman.”
a lucky break
He earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while he was kicked off the basketball team due to an injury.
He wrote in his memoir, “I was impressed by it and so were my audience.”
His English teacher urged him to move to Manhattan to try to “make a big move”. She got the role and made her Broadway debut in 1953 at the age of 16.
“I knew very little about being nervous,” Gossett wrote. “Looking back, I should have been very scared when I walked on that stage, but I wasn’t.”
Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He soon began acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.
Gossett became friends with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau, and Steve McQueen at a branch of the Actors Studio 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 became a star on Broadway in 1964, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr.
Racism, LA-style
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, when he stayed in a cockroach-infested motel, one of the few places that allowed black people.
In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a leading role in NBC’s first made-for-TV movie, “Companions in Nightmares”, starring Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neill.
This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios rented her a convertible. While driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, they were stopped by a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s officer, who ordered them to turn off the radio and roof the car before letting them go.
Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s officers, who cornered him in front of the car and asked him to open the trunk while calling the car rental agency before letting him go.
“Although I understood I had no choice but to endure this abuse, it was a terrible way to behave, a humiliating way to feel,” Gossett wrote in her memoir. “I realized that this was happening because I was black and showing off a fancy car – in their view, I had no right to drive.”
After dinner at the hotel, he went out for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he had broken a law banning walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. . Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was shackled. He was handcuffed to the tree for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car was returned.
“I now came face to face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he wrote. “But it wasn’t going to destroy me.”
In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his 1986 Rolls-Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were looking for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.
He founded the Racism Foundation to help create a world where racism does not exist.
A near-miss with the Manson family
Gossett guest-starred on shows such as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud” and had a memorable turn opposite Richard Pryor in “The Partridge Family.”
In August 1969, Gossett was partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when he was invited to the home of actor Sharon Tate. He went home first to take bath and change his clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he saw a news flash on TV about the Tate murder. That night, Charles Manson’s associates killed him and others.
“There must be some reason for me to avoid 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 porter, and Helen, a nurse. He later added Junior to his name in honor of his father.
“The Oscars gave me the ability to be able to pick good characters in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.”
He said that his statue is in storage.
He said of the book, “I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it.” “I need to be free of this.”
won but no lead
Gossett appeared in TV movies such as “The Story of Satchel Page”, “Backstairs at the White House”, “The Josephine Baker Story”, for which she won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.”
But he said winning an Oscar doesn’t change the fact that all of his roles were supporting.
He played a stubborn father in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.”
Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after winning the Oscar. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with Toxic Mold Syndrome, which he blamed on his home in Malibu.
In 2010, Gossett announced that he had prostate cancer, which he said was detected at an early stage. In 2020, he was hospitalized due to COVID-19.
His sons are Satie, a producer-director, from his second marriage, and Sharon, a chef, whom he adopted as a 7-year-old after seeing a TV segment depicting children in depressing conditions. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.
Gossett’s first marriage to Hattie Glassco was annulled. His second divorce with Christina Mangosing ended in divorce in 1975 and his third divorce with actor Cindy James-Reese in 1992.
