Louis Gossett Jr the 1st Black Man To Win Supporting Actor Oscar, Dies At 87

Los Angeles — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win an Oscar for supporting actor and an Emmy for his role in the pioneering television miniseries “Roots,” died. He was 87.

Neal L. Gossett, the actor’s first cousin, told The Associated Press that he died in Santa Monica, California. According to a family statement, Gossett died on Friday morning. No cause of death was revealed.

Gossett’s cousin remembers a man who walked with Nelson Mandela, a fantastic joke teller and a family member who faced and combated racism with dignity and humor.

Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black Man To Win Supporting Actor Oscar, Dies At 87

“Forget the prizes, the flash and glamor, the Rolls-Royces, and the large villas in Malibu. “It’s about the humanity of the people he represented,” his cousin explained.

Louis Gossett always viewed his early career as a reverse Cinderella narrative, with success finding him at a young age and propelling him ahead to his Academy Award for “An Officer and A Gentleman.”

Gossett made his television debut as Fiddler in the historic 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which exposed slavery’s miseries. The large cast includes Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton, and John Amos.

In 1983, Gossett became the third Black actor to receive an Oscar nomination in the supporting actor category. He won for portraying the intimidating Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman,” with Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also received a Golden Globe for the same role.

“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” he said in his 2010 biography, “An Actor and a Gentleman.”

He received his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school’s production of “You Can’t Take It with You” while recovering from an injury that kept him off the basketball team.

“I was hooked—and so was my audience,” he writes in his memoir.

His English teacher encouraged him to go to Manhattan to audition for “Take a Giant Step.” He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at sixteen.

“I knew too little to be nervous,” Gossett wrote. “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.”

Gossett went to New York University on a basketball and acting scholarship. He quickly began performing and singing on television shows presented by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar, and Steve Allen.

Gossett made friends with James Dean while studying acting with Steve McQueen, Martin Landau, and Marilyn Monroe at a branch of the Actors Studio run by Frank Silvera.

Gossett garnered critical praise in 1959 for his performance in the Broadway production of “A Raisin in the Sun” alongside Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Diana Sands.

He became a Broadway star, succeeding Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” alongside Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.

In 1961, Gossett made his first trip to Hollywood to work on the film adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun.” He had negative memories of the trip, including staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the only places that allowed Black people.

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood to play a prominent role in “Companions in Nightmare,” NBC’s first made-for-television film, alongside Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter, and Patrick O’Neal.

This time, Gossett was lodged at the Beverly Hills Hotel, and Universal Studios had hired him a convertible. A Los Angeles County sheriff’s officer stopped him after he picked up the car and told him to turn off the radio and raise the roof before letting him go.

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff’s police, who forced him to lean against the car and open the trunk while they called the auto rental business before releasing him.

“Though 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,” Gossett wrote in his account of the experience. “I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.”

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who informed him that he had violated a rule barring walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other cops came, and Gossett stated that he had been shackled to a tree and in handcuffs for three hours. He was eventually set free when the original police car returned.

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” he said. “But it was not going to destroy me.”

Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black Man To Win Supporting Actor Oscar, Dies At 87

Gossett claimed that while driving his restored 1986 Rolls-Royce Corniche II on the Pacific Coast Highway in the late 1990s, police stopped him. The police informed him he resembled someone they were looking for, but he recognized Gossett and departed.

He formed the Eracism Foundation to assist in creating a world free of racism.

Gossett made several guest appearances on shows such as “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” “McCloud,” and a noteworthy performance with Richard Pryor on “The Partridge Family.”

Gossett was partying with Mamas and Papas members in August 1969 when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate’s house. He went home first to shower and change clothes. As he was about to depart, he saw a news flash on TV regarding Tate’s murder. That night, Charles Manson’s associates murdered her and several others.

“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” he stated in an email.

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in Brooklyn’s Coney Island neighborhood to parents Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He eventually added Jr. to his name in honor of his father.

“The Oscar gave me the ability to choose good roles in films like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat,’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” Gossett remarked in Dave Karger’s 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights.”

He claimed his statue was in storage.

“I’m going to donate it to a library so I don’t have to keep an eye on it,” he stated in the book. “I need to be free of it.”

Gossett starred in television films such as “The Story of Satchel Paige,” “Backstairs at the White House,” “The Josephine Baker Story,” for which he won another Golden Globe, and “Roots Revisited.”

However, he stated that winning an Oscar did not change the reality that all his parts were supporting.

Louis Gossett Jr., 1st Black Man To Win Supporting Actor Oscar, Dies At 87

He plays an unyielding patriarch in the 2023 version of “The Color Purple.”

After winning the Oscar, Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for several years. He went to rehab and was diagnosed with toxic mold illness, which he attributed to his Malibu home.

Gossett disclosed in 2010 that he had prostate cancer, which he said was detected early. In 2020, he was hospitalized for COVID-19.

He also left behind two 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 kids in perilous 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 actor Cyndi James-Reese, in 1992.

SOURCE – (AP)