Louis Gossett Jr., won an Academy Award for his work in Roots and An Officer and a Gentleman, has passed away. He was most recognized for his acclaimed performances in both films. He was 87 years old.
The news of Gossett’s passing was verified by the Associated Press after the actor’s nephew informed the publication that he passed away on Thursday evening in Santa Monica, California. The cause of passing has not been determined at this time.
Gossett began his acting career on Broadway in 1953, while he was still a student at Abraham Lincoln High School. He was born in New York City, and his first Broadway performance was in the play Take a Giant Step. The following is an explanation that he provided in a discussion that took place in 1991 with Bob Costas: “A pretty promising career in high school.”
Take a Giant Step is a Broadway production that is seeking for a young woman of African descent to portray the main role in the production. As a result of their inability to locate anybody working in the industry, they are heading to the high schools. According to his recollection, he was instructed to “tell your mother to take you down there.” “So, that’s how I got in show business.”
Over the course of the subsequent years, Gossett attended New York University and gave performances in the Broadway production of The Desk Set in the years 1955 and 1956. Beginning with the film A Raisin in the Sun, which was released in 1961, he made his debut in the film industry. Since then, the Library of Congress has included the film in the United States National Film Registry. Gossett participated in the film with the illustrious Sidney Poitier, which was released two years after the original Lorraine Hansberry play made its debut on Broadway.
People magazine quoted Gossett as saying, “I was in awe of that man — his experience and strength,” in reference to the late Sidney Poitier in the year 2024. In the same way that I supported him, he supported me.
In the 1960s, when Gossett was just starting out in the film industry, he was also active in the world of sports and performances as a folk musician (“I passed the brass playing in the coffee shops down in the Village,” he told People). Because he wanted to concentrate on acting, he even declined the opportunity to play basketball professionally. “When I got a call from Lorraine Hansberry to be a part of A Raisin in the Sun, I was at rookie training for the [New York] Knicks,” Gossett said in an interview with PEOPLE. “I was a part of the film.”
It was reported that the role came with a daily stipend of $700, which is more money than the majority of professional players had in their bank accounts at the time. As he said, “I put the basketball down, and the rest, as they say, is history.”
After relocating to Los Angeles in the 1960s with the intention of concentrating on cinema and television, his next big part came in 1977 when he portrayed Fiddler in Roots. For this performance, he was awarded an Emmy for best lead actor in a single appearance in a drama or comedy series. After some time had passed, he revealed that he had first been apprehensive to accept the work.
I said, “Well, how come they saved the ‘Uncle Tom’ [role] for me?” and they responded with it. “When I was offered the role, I tried to hide the insult that hit me in the pit of my stomach,” Gossett said in an interview with ScreenRant. “After that, I responded by saying, ‘Well, I’m not going to do that because I want to be a part of this event…. The resurrection character is a survivor in America who does not remember being a slave, and it is a task to get him to a place where he can survive. The existence of Kunta Kinte would be impossible without Fiddler.
Following his triumph in Roots, Gossett went on to have a successful run in the film industry with his performance as Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, a drill instructor, in the 1982 film An Officer and a Gentleman. As a result of his performance in the film, Gossett was awarded the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, marking him the first performing artist of African descent to receive the Supporting Actor Oscar.
“They had hired another actor who was White, but when director Taylor Hackford discovered that 75% of the Marine DI’s were Black, they paid him off and hired me instead. I was hired.” According to what he shared with PEOPLE in the year 2024, “I went down to San Diego Marine Corps to learn for six weeks.” “When I showed up on set, I was a marine.”
During an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Gossett remembered that he first could not believe that he had won the Academy Award. He also stated that his agent “hit me on the chest and said, ‘They mentioned your name.'”
“Under the impression that I was sleeping, I turned my head to look at him. While I was looking around, I saw that there was applause,” he stated. The possibility was not intended to exist. As a result, I expressed my gratitude. That is a significant part of the past.
Gossett made appearances in a variety of films and television shows throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Some of the films and series that he was a part of during this time period include Jaws 3-D, Enemy Mine, The Principal, Sadat, Iron Eagle, the Marvel-based picture The Punisher, Toy Soldiers, A Good Man in Africa, and Blue Chips. In addition, he managed Saturday Night Live in the year 1982.
Later on in his career, Gossett returned to his theatrical origins by playing the role of Billy Flynn in the production of Chicago in the year 1996.
Watchmen, a limited series that aired on HBO in 2019, featured Gossett in a part that is considered to be among his most famous latter appearances. Following its limited run of nine episodes, the multi-award winning program was honored with a number of accolades, including eleven Emmys. In the year 2020, he said to Page Six that he did not “know what the real answer is” about the reason why the program was not brought back for another season.
As Gossett noted in 2024, he was “still here” and had no intentions to resign from his role as Mister Johnson in The Color Purple, which he had played since 2023. According to what he said with PEOPLE, “God must have something left for me to do.”
“As long as I’m here, there’s a job to do for the benefit of us all,” Gossett had previously said in an interview provided to CBS Sunday Morning. “For what it’s worth.”
His two adult sons, Satie and Sharron, are the only ones who will go on after the passing of Gossett, who had been married and divorced three times.
