Louis Gossett Jr dead at 87: The first black man to win an Oscar for best supporting actor, has passed away

Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr has died at the age of 87. The actor, who won an Academy Award for the movie ‘An Officer and a Gentleman,’ was the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar.

His nephew told the Associated Press that his uncle had passed away on Thursday night and no cause of death has been revealed as yet. The Los Angeles Times reported: “He appeared with Sidney Poitier in Raisin in the Sun in 1961, when racial stereotyping in the movies was still in full bloom. He won an Emmy as a slave named Fiddler in Roots in 1977 as ABC fretted whether the series should even be shown in the Deep South.

"And when an Academy Award for his role as the steely, no-nonsense drill sergeant in An Officer and a Gentleman failed to turn on the spigot for more meaningful roles, Gossett masked his anger with drugs and alcohol and then rescued himself with activism.”

Born on 27 May 1936, he was raised by his mother, Hellen, who was a nurse and his father, Louis Sr, a porter. Louis Gossett Jr was originally destined for a career in basketball but decided to give up the sport and the New York Knicks for Hollywood. 

When he wasn’t able to play basketball because of injury in high school, he had a role in his high school production of You Can't Take It with You and revealed in his 2010 memoir, An Actor and a Gentleman, that he was "hooked and so was my audience”.

Encouraged by his English teacher to try out for a role in Take a Giant Step, he got the part and made his Broadway debut at the tender age of 16. He went on to win a basketball and drama scholarship to New York University, going on to study alongside Marilyn Monroe and becoming friends with Hollywood legend James Dean.

As well as starring in A Raisin in the Sun alongside Sidney Poitier on Broadway, he also made a film version of it in Hollywood. In 1968, he starred in NBC’s first made-for-TV movie, Companions in Nightmare. While in Los Angeles starring in the movie, he was pulled over by County Sheriff officers while in a rented convertible hired for him by Universal Studios.

In his memoir he wrote: “Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel.” He continued: “I realised this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving.”

Also starring as Fiddler in the 1977 miniseries, Roots, the show depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. He went on to win an Oscar for best supporting actor for his performance as a Marine drill instructor in An Officer and a Gentleman which starred Richard Gere and Debra Winger. He also won a Golden Globe for his role in the movie. 

After his Oscar, he struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction and went to rehab. He was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and was hospitalised with COVID-19 in 2020.

Married three times, his first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled, he divorced his second wife Christina Mangosing in 1975 and divorced his third wife Cyndi James-Reese in 1992. He is survived by Sharron and son Satie, a producer-director from his marriage to Christina.