Actor Lou Gossett Jr., who has died at the age of 87, was best known for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), whose rigorous training helped recruit Richard Gere He transforms into the man of the movie’s title. He was the first black person to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, and the third black actor (after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney Poitier) to win an Oscar.
Director Taylor Hackford cast Gossett in a role written for a white actor, following a familiar Hollywood trope played by John Wayne, Burt Lancaster, Victor McLaglen, and R. Lee Ermey. , he said that this was because during his research he noticed the tension that “black people were being drafted into the military.” Men have the power to decide whether white college graduates become executives. Gossett had already won an Emmy for playing a different kind of mentor, a slave fiddler who teaches Kunta Kinte the ropes, in Roots (1977), but when he landed his breakthrough role, He was 46 years old and still relatively unknown. They have a long history of success not only on screen, but also on stage and in music.
Louis was born in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, the son of Helen (née Ray), a nurse, and Louis Sr., a porter. As a child, he suffered from polio, but became a high school athlete before a basketball injury led him to join the drama club. His teacher encouraged him to audition professionally, and at age 17 he won the Donaldson Award for Best Newcomer for his role as a troublemaker in Broadway’s Take a Giant Step.
He won a theater scholarship to New York University, but continued to work in The Desk Set (1955) and made his television debut in two episodes of the NBC anthology show Big Story. In 1959, he appeared in A Raisin in the Sun with Poitier and Ruby Dee, and made his film debut in the same role in 1961. On Broadway that year, he appeared in Jean Genet’s The Blacks with an all-star cast that included James Earl Jones. Cicely Tyson, Roscoe Lee Brown, Godfrey Cambridge, and a young Maya Angelou. It was the longest running show of the decade.
Gossett was also active in the Greenwich Village folk music scene. He released his first single “Hooka Dooka, Green Green” in 1964, and then sea sea riderco-wrote the anti-war hit handsome johnny With Richie Havens. In 1967 he released another single, a drum and horn version of Pete Seeger’s anti-war anthem “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” He appeared in his gospel musical Tambourine to Glory (1963), and at the 1964 New York World’s Fair producer Mike he appeared in Todd’s America, Be Seated.
His plays became more limited. “Zulu and Zaida” and “My Sweet Charlie.” In the short-lived Carry Me Back to Morningside Heights, he played a black man who owned white slaves. His last Broadway role was as murdered Congolese leader Patrice Ramumba in Conor Cruise O’Brien’s Murderous Angels (1971). Gossett had roles in the New York-set TV series The Naked City and other roles, but despite being handcuffed to a tree by LAPD officers in 1966 on “suspects,” Gossett did not make a name for himself in Hollywood. began to appear.
On television, he starred in Young Rebels (1970-71), a film set during the American Revolution. In film, he played a desperate tenant in Hal Ashby’s The Landlord (1970), and in The Skin Game (1971), co-starring James Garner, he plays a desperate tenant who is repeatedly sold into slavery and then runs away. The role of participating in a scam to help someone was wonderful.
In 1977, he rose to prominence as a memorable villain alongside Roots in Peter Yates’ hit The Deep, and took artistic revenge on the Los Angeles Police Department in Robert Aldrich’s The Choirboys. The TV movie Lazarus Syndrome (1979) was made into a series, with Gossett playing a pragmatic hospital chief of staff who confronts an idealistic young doctor. He played black baseball star Satchel Paige in the television movie Don’t Look Back (1981). A few years later, he had a bit role as another Negro Leagues star, Cool Papa Bell, in The Perfect Game (2009).
After winning his Oscar, he played another assassinated African leader in the TV miniseries Sadat, a role reportedly approved by Anwar Sadat’s widow Jihan. Although he remained busy as an actor, he was unable to land good starring roles in major productions as producers retreated to his drill sergeant image. He played Colonel “Chappie” Sinclair in Iron Eagle (1986) and its three disastrous sequels.
However, in 1989 he appeared in Dick Wolf’s television series Gideon Oliver as an anthropology professor who solves New York crimes. He won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role in the TV movie The Josephine Baker Story (1991). He returned to the stage in the film adaptation of Sam Shepard’s The Curse of the Starving Class (1994).
Gossett won two NAACP Image Awards and an Emmy Award for producing the children’s special In His Father’s Shoes (1997). In 2006 he Elacism Foundation, offers programs that promote “cultural diversity, historical richness, and anti-violence efforts.” Despite eventually contracting an illness related to toxic mold at his home in Santa Monica, he continued to work on Stargate with a recurring role in his SG-1 (2005-06). A diagnosis of prostate cancer in 2010 did little to slow him down.
Most recently, he starred in the TV series Watchmen (2019), the gospel music industry series Kingdom Business, and the 2023 remake of the musical The Color Purple, where he played Will “Hooded Justice” Reeves. acted.
His first marriage to Hattie Glascow in 1967 was annulled five months later. Her second opponent was Christina Mangosing, who lasted for two years from 1973. He is survived by two sons, Sati from his second marriage and Sharon from his third marriage.
