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

Louis Gossett Jr, the first Black man to win an Oscar for Best Supporting role and an Emmy winner for his role in the iconic TV miniseries Roots, has died. He was 87. Gossett’s first cousin Neal L Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. The cause of his death was not revealed.

A look back at Louis Gossett Jr acting career

His first acting role was in Brooklyn high school’s production of You Can’t Take It with You while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury. Gossett later 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.

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. In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands.

Gossett begins his Hollywood career, faces racism

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of A Raisin in the Sun. He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people. In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in Companions in Nightmare, NBC’s first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O’Neal.

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 recognised Gossett and left.

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn’t exist. Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as Bonanza, The Rockford Files, The Mod Squad, McCloud and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on The Partridge Family.

Gossett's breakthrough role in Roots and historic Oscar win

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries Roots, which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling 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 for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in An Officer and a Gentleman opposite 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 position as a Black actor,” he wrote in his memoir. “The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like Enemy Mine, Sadat and Iron Eagle, Gossett said in Dave Karger’s 2024 book 50 Oscar Nights.”

Gossett also appeared in such TV movies 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.

But he said winning an Oscar didn’t change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones. He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of The Color Purple.

Gossett's struggle with addiction and cancer diagnosis

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. In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalised with COVID-19.

He 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.

Gossett’s 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.

(With inputs from AP news)