Louis Gossett Jr., first black man to win Best Support Actor Oscar, dies : NPR

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One of Hollywood’s most versatile actors has died. Louis Gossett Jr. was 87 years old. Gossett racked up hundreds of screen credits during a pioneering career that spanned seven decades. NPR’s Neda Ulaby has a memory.

NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Louis Gossett Jr., whose intense, angular face you know from movies and television, starred on Broadway as a teenager. He starred alongside Maya Angelou, Marilyn Monroe, Sidney Poitier and in the 1964 musical “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr.

(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC, “GOLDEN BOY”)

LOUIS GOSSETT JR: (As Eddie Satin, singing) Pretty women, blue-eyed or dark-haired – how they drive you crazy, how they drag you down.

ULABY: The burgeoning young star was quickly flown to Hollywood by the studios.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: I was treated like royalty – in first class and in limousines.

ULABY: And, as Gossett told NPR’s Michel Martin in 2010, he was offered a glamorous rental car.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: Ford Fairlane Galaxie 500 with a hardtop and was white on the outside and red on the inside. And I felt like you couldn’t touch me with a 2 meter pole. And it was only a 20 minute drive from the rental car to the hotel, which took 4 and a half hours. I was stopped every 15 to 20 minutes because the police stopped me and wanted to know who I was.

MICHEL MARTIN: No, not just once, but what, like…

GOSSETT: Oh, that’s four and a half hours.

ULABY: His ordeal against Hollywood racism was only beginning.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: And that night, I ended up being handcuffed to a tree for three hours for walking around Beverly Hills after 9 p.m.

ULABY: But Gossett was unstoppable. He appeared on the TV shows “The Partridge Family,” “Bonanza,” “The Jeffersons,” “Little House On The Prairie,” and then in a groundbreaking 1977 miniseries.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “ROOTS”)

GOSSETT: (As fiddler) Kunta Kinte.

ULABY: “Roots” helped audiences see American slavery. Gossett played the main character’s protector. In one scene, he comforts him after a brutal whipping. And he improvised this transcendent line.

(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW, “ROOTS”)

GOSSETT: (as Fiddler) There will be another day. You hear me? There will be another day.

ULABY: Louis Gossett Jr. won an Emmy for the role. A few years later, he made history by becoming the first black actor to win an Oscar. In 1983’s “An Officer And A Gentleman,” he played a tough drill sergeant trying to break down Richard Gere.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “AN OFFICER AND A GENTLEMAN”)

GOSSETT: (As Sgt. Emil Foley) I want your DOR.

RICHARD GERE: (as Zack Mayo) I’m not going to stop.

GOSSETT: (As Sergeant Emil Foley) Spell it. GOLDEN.

GERE: (As Zack Mayo) I’m not going to stop.

GOSSETT: (As Sergeant Emil Foley) Yeah. Then you can be free. And you and your dad can get drunk and chase whores together.

GERE: (As Zack Mayo) No, sir.

GOSSETT: (As Sergeant Emil Foley) DOR.

GERE: (As Zack Mayo) I’m not going to stop.

GOSSETT: (As Sergeant Emil Foley) All right. Then you can forget about it. You are outside.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: I haven’t received any phone calls except congratulatory phone calls and no actual offers.

ULABY: Gossett on NPR in 1986, just three years after his Oscar win.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: I think it has to do with racism, but I have to deal with subliminal racism, the way things happened. They would have nothing. They didn’t know what to do with me. I haven’t made a film like Eastwood or Redford yet, and that’s eating away at me a bit.

ULABY: It was eating away at him a lot. Here’s Gossett, 24 years later, again on NPR.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: You look at my track record over a 55-year period for all the awards. I…maybe I should be a little closer to Clint Eastwood, don’t you think? If you think about drugs and alcohol, then maybe I should be more like Robert Downey Jr.

ULABY: Gossett went to rehab for drug and alcohol addiction 20 years ago and completed a 12-step program.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)

GOSSETT: In my program, I had to get rid of what’s killing everyone, actually, and that’s resentment.

ULABY: Drug addiction and racism, Gossett said, were deadly diseases that he fought passionately against. Gossett never became a major movie star, but he inspired generations of fellow actors.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

FANTASIA BARRINO: (singing) We thank you for everything you’ve done, oh…

ULABY: One of Lou Gossett Jr.’s last films was a recent one, “The Color Purple.” His young stars paid tribute to him in this filming video posted on YouTube.

(SOUNDBITE OF YOUTUBE VIDEO)

BARRINO: (singing) …I want to say thank you.

ULABY: The singer was Fantasia Barrino. In a statement on social media about Lou Gossett Jr., she said he was a great man.

Neda Ulaby, NPR News.

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