Louis Gossett Jr., pioneer Black Oscar winner, dies at 87.
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At the age of 87, Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black actor to win an Oscar and an Emmy for his performance in “Roots,” departed from this life.
The Associated Press was informed by Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett that the actor passed away in Santa Monica, California. According to a family statement, Gossett passed away on Friday morning. The cause of death remained a mystery.
Gossett’s cousin recounted the story of a relative who confronted and combated prejudice with humor and dignity, a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and was also a terrific joker.
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It doesn’t matter about the accolades, the glamour, the Rolls-Royces, or the lavish homes in Malibu. The human aspect of the people he supported is what matters, according to his relative.
Louis Gossett always viewed his early career as a kind of reverse Cinderella tale, in which success came to him at a young age and helped him on his journey to winning the Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.”
As Fiddler in the ground-breaking 1977 miniseries “Roots,” which portrayed the horrors of slavery on TV, Gossett made his breakthrough on the small screen. John Amos, LeVar Burton, and Ben Vereen were among the large cast members.
In 1983, Gossett was nominated for a third Black Oscar in the supporting actor category. Serving as the formidable Marine drill instructor in “An Officer and a Gentleman” with Richard Gere and Debra Winger, he took home the award for that role. For the same part, he was also awarded a Golden Globe.
In his biography “An Actor and a Gentleman,” published in 2010, he stated, “More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor.”
An auspicious moment
While he was out of the basketball team due to an injury, he received his first acting credit in the “You Can’t Take It with You” play at his Brooklyn high school.
“In my memoir, I wrote that I was hooked, and my audience was, too.”
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He was encouraged by his English instructor to travel to Manhattan and try out for “Take a Giant Step.” After being cast, he debuted on Broadway in 1953 at the age of sixteen.
Gossett writes, “I knew too little to be nervous.” “In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn’t.”
Gossett received scholarships to study acting and basketball at New York University. Soon after, he began performing and singing on television programs presented by Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan, Merv Griffin, Red Buttons, Jack Paar, and David Susskind.
Gossett became good friends with James Dean and attended an offshoot of the Actors Studio directed by Frank Silvera to study acting alongside Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau, and Steve McQueen.
Gossett, together with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, and Diana Sands, starred in the Broadway version of “A Raisin in the Sun” in 1959, earning praise from critics.
He later rose to fame on Broadway, taking Sammy Davis Jr.’s place as Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” in 1964.
Racism in the vein of Los Angeles
In 1961, Gossett traveled to Hollywood for the first time in order to work on the “A Raisin in the Sun” picture. His recollections of that trip, when he had slept in one of the few motels that would let Black people in, a cockroach-infested one, were sour.
He made a big comeback to Hollywood in 1968 when he featured in NBC’s first made-for-TV film, “Companions in Nightmare,” alongside Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter, and Patrick O’Neal.
Universal Studios had rented Gossett a convertible, and he was staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel this time. He picked up the car and was driving back to the hotel when he was pulled over by a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, who told him to put up the car’s roof and turn down the radio before he could go.
He was stopped by eight sheriff’s police in a matter of minutes; they made him lean against the car and open the trunk while they phoned the automobile rental company before releasing him.
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“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 said in his autobiography. “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.”
He went for a walk after dinner at the hotel and was stopped by a policeman a block away, who informed him that he had broken a statute that forbade him from going through residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Gossett claimed he had been handcuffed and shackled to a tree for three hours when two more cops showed up. Eventually, the original police car came back, and he was let free.
“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight,” wrote the writer. “But it was not going to destroy me.”
While driving his refurbished 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II, Gossett said he was stopped by authorities in the late 1990s while traveling on the Pacific Coast Highway. Though the officer acknowledged that Gossett appeared to be the person they were looking for, he nevertheless departed after telling him so.
To aid in the creation of a world free from racism, he established the Eracism Foundation.
Close call with Manson.
Along with Richard Pryor, Gossett had a famous stint on “The Partridge Family.” He also had a number of guest appearances on television shows, including “Bonanza,” “The Rockford Files,” “The Mod Squad,” and “McCloud.”
When they received an invitation to actor Sharon Tate’s home in August 1969, Gossett was out having fun with members of the Mamas and Papas. After taking a shower and changing into new clothing, he went home. Right before his departure, he happened to see a TV news flash concerning Tate’s murder. That night, Charles Manson’s cronies killed her along with several others.
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“There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet,” the writer stated.
Born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island neighborhood of Brooklyn, New York, Louis Cameron Gossett was the son of nurse Hellen and porter Louis Sr. Later, in honor of his father, he added Jr. to his name.
“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like ‘Enemy Mine,’ ‘Sadat’ and ‘Iron Eagle,'” remarked Gossett in Dave Karger’s book “50 Oscar Nights,” published in 2024.
He said that his statue was kept in storage.
In the book, he stated, “I’m going to give it to a library so I don’t have to watch over it.” “I need to be free of it.”
Louis Gossett Jr., pioneer Black Oscar winner, dies at 87.
Winning streak
Gossett starred in television films that included “Roots Revisited,” “The Josephine Baker Story,” “Backstairs at the White House,” and “The Story of Satchel Paige,” for which he was nominated for a second Golden Globe.
However, he insisted that receiving an Oscar didn’t alter the reality that all of his parts were supporting ones.
In 2023, he portrayed a stubborn father figure in the “The Color Purple” adaptation.
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Following his Oscar victory, Gossett battled years of alcohol and cocaine addiction. His Malibu home was the reason for his toxic mold syndrome diagnosis at the rehab facility where he was admitted.
Prostate cancer, which Gossett said was discovered in its early stages, was disclosed to the public in 2010. COVID-19 sent him to the hospital in 2020.
His sons, Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after witnessing the 7-year-old on a TV program on needy kids, also survive him. Hollywood actor Robert Gossett is his first cousin.
Hattie Glascoe and Gossett’s first marriage was dissolved. Both his third marriage to actress Cyndi James-Reese in 1992 and his second marriage to Christina Mangosing ended in divorce in 1975.