Louis Gossett Jr, the Oscar-winning actor has passed away at the age of 87. Confirming the news of death, his nephew told The Associated Press that the actor who also won Emmy for his role in the seminal TV miniseries Roots died Thursday night in Santa Monica, California. No cause of death was revealed.
Louis Gossett Jr, Was the First Black Man to Win Supporting Actor Oscar
Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman (1982). Image Credit: Paramount Pictures
Louis Gossett Jr, the first black man to win the best supporting actor Oscar, dies at 87, according to a report by AP. Gossett’s first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press:
“Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamor, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It’s about the humanity of the people that he stood for.”
The actor won a supporting actor Oscar for playing the hard-as-nails drill instructor in 1982’s An Officer and a Gentleman.
Apart from that, Gossett is best known for films Enemy Mine (1985) and Iron Eagle (1986).
Along with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee and Diana Sands, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun in 1959.
He gained much accolades for his as the cunning Fiddler in Roots, which earned him Emmy, he also starred in another miniseries about slavery, BET’s The Book of Negroes, in 2015.
