{"id":25489,"date":"2024-03-29T20:25:16","date_gmt":"2024-03-30T01:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25489"},"modified":"2024-03-29T20:25:26","modified_gmt":"2024-03-30T01:25:26","slug":"louis-gossett-jr-1st-black-man-to-win-supporting-actor-oscar-dies-at-87","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=25489","title":{"rendered":"Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black man to win supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Louis Gossett Jr.,<\/a> the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries \u201cRoots,\u201d<\/a> has died. He was 87.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett\u2019s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died in Santa Monica, California. A statement from the family said Gossett died Friday morning. No cause of death was revealed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett\u2019s cousin remembered a man<\/a> who walked with Nelson Mandela<\/a> and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNever mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamor, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It\u2019s about the humanity of the people that he stood for,\u201d his cousin said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award<\/a> for \u201cAn Officer and a Gentleman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries \u201cRoots,\u201d which\u00a0depicted the atrocities of slavery<\/a>\u00a0on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett became the third Black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983. He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in \u201cAn Officer and a Gentleman\u201d opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe<\/a> for the same role.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMore than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,\u201d he wrote in his 2010 memoir, \u201cAn Actor and a Gentleman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school\u2019s production of \u201cYou Can\u2019t Take It with You\u201d while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was hooked \u2014 and so was my audience,\u201d he wrote in his memoir.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AP correspondent Donna Warder reports actor Lou Gossett Jr. has died at age 87.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for \u201cTake a Giant Step.\u201d He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI knew too little to be nervous,\u201d Gossett wrote. \u201cIn retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of \u201cA Raisin in the Sun\u201d<\/a> along with Sidney Poitier,<\/a>Ruby Dee<\/a> and Diana Sands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in \u201cGolden Boy\u201d with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of \u201cA Raisin in the Sun.\u201d He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in \u201cCompanions in Nightmare,\u201d NBC\u2019s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O\u2019Neal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff\u2019s officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car\u2019s roof before letting him go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff\u2019s officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThough I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel,\u201d Gossett wrote in his memoir. \u201cI realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car \u2014 which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBut it was not going to destroy me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn\u2019t exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as \u201cBonanza,\u201d \u201cThe Rockford Files,\u201d \u201cThe Mod Squad,\u201d \u201cMcCloud\u201d and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor<\/a> on \u201cThe Partridge Family.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate\u2019s house.<\/a> He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate\u2019s murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson\u2019s associates<\/a> that night.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like \u2018Enemy Mine,\u2019 \u2018Sadat\u2019 and \u2018Iron Eagle,\u2019\u201d Gossett said in Dave Karger\u2019s 2024 book \u201c50 Oscar Nights.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said his statue was in storage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to donate it to a library so I don\u2019t have to keep an eye on it,\u201d he said in the book. \u201cI need to be free of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as \u201cThe Story of Satchel Paige,\u201d \u201cBackstairs at the White House, \u201cThe Josephine Baker Story,\u201d for which he won another Golden Globe, and \u201cRoots Revisited.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But he said winning an Oscar didn\u2019t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of \u201cThe Color Purple.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gossett\u2019s first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

apnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES (AP) \u2014 Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries \u201cRoots,\u201d has died. He was 87. Gossett\u2019s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died in Santa Monica, California. A statement from the family said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5782],"tags":[27541,27540],"class_list":["post-25489","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ep","tag-louis-gossett-jr","tag-the-first-black-man-to-win-the-oscar-for-supporting-actor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25489","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25489"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25489\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25491,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25489\/revisions\/25491"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25490"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25489"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25489"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25489"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}