THE COLOR PURPLE (2023) Blitz Bazawule
Yesterday, in a public statement, the family of Louis Gossett Jr. announced the actor's death. He was 87, and though no cause was revealed, he had been fighting prostate cancer for the past decade. Mourning the loss of such an artist is to celebrate the person and the performer, remembering his work across decades, from stage to screen, big and small. No genre was beneath him, no role beyond his range, be it a lead part or a supporting turn that showed up for just one scene or two. Indeed, earlier this year, Gossett received a SAG ensemble nomination for his work in The Color Purple musical.
Speaking of awards, this thespian is a history-making figure for Oscar obsessives. After all, he was the first Black man to win the Best Supporting Actor trophy…
Born Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. on May 27th, 1936, the future Academy Award winner was the son of a nurse and a porter. Growing up in New York City, he became interested in the performing arts after a sports injury led him to attend a high school acting class. At 17, he made his stage debut in a student production of You Can't Take It With You, and in little time, the young actor was taking his first strides toward a career on Broadway. Even before college, he landed a role in 1953's Take a Giant Step, the first of many professional gigs he balanced with studying during that decade. Indeed, he attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship before taking further classes in the Actors Studio under Frank Silvera.
There, he'd find a friend in James Dean and shared classes with many other stars of stage and screen. Some were already famous, like Marilyn Monroe, while others were just getting started, like Steve McQueen. And yet, the potential for a sports career persisted in Gossett's life, culminating in an offer from the New York Knicks in 1959. He declined, going on to act in the original production of A Raisin in the Sun that same year. When the play made its way to the silver screen, Gossett followed, reprising the role of George Murchison in Daniel Petrie's film. Considering his talent and the movie's lasting legacy, one could suppose this would mean a swift rise to stardom for young Gossett, but that wasn't in the cards.
A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1961) Daniel Petrie
Like many a promising Black thespian in midcentury America, he struggled to find opportunities and divided his attention between various artistic avenues. On TV, he landed a series of one-episode stints, while New York saw him rise as an exciting voice in the Folk music scene – in 1966, he wrote the antiwar song "Handsome Johnny" for Richie Havens' Mixed Bag album. On stage, he appeared in a series of significant works, like a production of Jean Genet's The Blacks, where he shared the limelight with James Earl Jones, Cicely Tyson, and Maya Angelou. Later, he'd replace Billy Daniels in the Golden Boy, acting with Sammy Davis Jr. to great success. Every achievement was hard-won, every triumph born from struggle and perseverance.
After a disappointing first foray into Hollywood in the early 60s, Gossett returned in 1968 with a major role in NBC's first TV Movie, Companions in Nightmare. From then on, the roles grew, and so did the offers, but Gossett's success didn't make him impervious to the humiliations of living as a Black man in 1960s America. Over the years, he wrote plenty about his experiences, including in his memoir An Actor and a Gentleman, detailing multiple incidents with the LAPD. He also disclosed that he was supposed to be in Sharon Tate's house on the night of the Manson murders, escaping because he decided to head home first instead of following members of the Mamas and the Papas to the actress' house. By the time he was leaving home to join them, the horror was on the news.
The dawn of the 1970s saw Gossett achieving even greater success than before. Two years into the decade, he had already released his first album, From Me, and scored a lead role in the period comedy Skin Game. In it, he played an Antebellum conman who, along with James Garner as his partner in crime, scams enslavers. While the picture's racial politics may not have aged marvelously, Gossett's charisma and movie star power were evident. Still in 1971, the actor made a lauded guest appearance in Bonanza and played Patrice Lumumba on stage. The balancing act between mediums continued, with Gossett avoiding type-casting throughout. Looking back at his filmography, the man's range is remarkable.
You can find him stealing scenes from Maggie Smith in Travels with My Aunt, tapping into broad comedy and theatrical swagger. But in The Landlord, he moves from a funny side character to a visceral threat before exiting the narrative with heartbreaking rawness. For The White Dawn, Gossett worked alongside a cast primarily formed by Eskimo tribespeople with no acting experience. Director Phillip Kaufman was experimenting with the same docudrama registers that made Robert J. Flaherty a mainstay of film history curriculums with Nanook of the North. And then there's The Deep, where Gossett emerges as the movie's saving grace amid a storm of exploitative camerawork and racist stereotypes.
THE DEEP (1977) Peter Yates
Playing a villain, the actor negotiates menace with faint glances of nobility, a gentleman's grace ringing between each note of bloodthirst. I can't recommend that Jaws wannabee mess, but every scene with Gossett is worth watching. The same can be said of J.D.'s Revenge, a blaxploitation possession horror where the actor landed a pivotal supporting role. At first, he seems like a symbol of religious integrity in a mad world before an eleventh-hour twist forces the reverend character to grapple with the darkness beneath his Godly life. It's incredible work, a shot of reality contrasting Glynn Turman's wild expressivity as the picture's protagonist. They worked together twice in 1976 since the pair also appeared in the film adaptation of The River Niger.
In 1977, Louis Gossett Jr. found one of his most memorable roles as Fiddler in Roots, a breakthrough turn that earned him an Emmy. In his own words, the actor worked to get over his distaste for the character's "Uncle Tom" subservience, looking for the inner strategies of a survivor within a system trying to crush him. Similar to Cicely Tyson, Gossett would find more roles worth his time on the small rather than the big screen. He worked regularly on TV, amassing seven subsequent Emmy nominations across five decades. His last one came just in 2020, for his part as William Reeves in Watchmen. But Gossett's most enduring work came in 1982 for those more concerned with cinema.
ROOTS (1977) David GreeneTaylor Hackford's An Officer and a Gentleman saw Gossett play a tyrannical drill sergeant against Richard Gere's navy officer candidate. On the surface, it's a role both showy and limited, composed of invective shouting and slur-infested abuse for most of the screen time. He's terrifying, yet whenever Gossett gets quiet, his intimidation feels ten times more biting. Moreover, the actor brings hints of complexity into the text. Notice the tonal flexibility, how Sgt. Foley's fury is partly performative, a professional role he slips into but not the end-all-be-all of his character. The following year, he won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar in what felt like an affirmation of his position as a Black actor.
Still, finding good roles was hard, highlighting the industry's shortcomings when it came to minority performers. His bread and butter were supporting parts, often verging on stereotype, and some of the most interesting work went outside the bubble of prestige afforded to white actors with comparable accolades. Take Enemy Mine from 1985, a sci-fi parable where Gossett plays a non-binary alien stranded on a deserted planet with Dennis Quaid. As a human, he's his martial enemy in a galactic war, but the narrative works to bridge their differences in a manner that would feel clichéd if not for the genre trappings. Beneath layers of reptilian makeup, Louis Gossett Jr. manages to deliver a performance that beckons empathy, a spike of emotional reality between alien language blabbering and meteor showers.
I could keep talking about Gossett's performances for eternity, even if the projects he found himself in rarely deserved what he brought to them. In the late 80s and 90s, he became an unlikely fixture in action movies, while his TV appearances leaned into prestige fare and traditional awards bait. He kept working to the end, even when going through health scares, gifting us with dozens of titles to re-watch as we grieve over his passing. He was married three times and leaves behind two children, not to mention countless colleagues who were quick to talk about the actor when news of his death broke out. Everyone seems to have kind words to share about Gossett, admiration for a consummate professional who elevated every project he ever took part in. It goes without saying, but Louis Gossett Jr. will be missed.
What's your favorite Louis Gossett Jr. performance? Share your thoughts about the dear departed actor in the comments.