\n<\/p>\n
Louis Gossett Jr., who took home an Academy Award for \u201cAn Officer and a Gentleman\u201d and an Emmy for \u201cRoots,\u201d both times playing a mature man who guides a younger one taking on a new role \u2014 but in drastically different circumstances \u2014 died early Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 87.<\/p>\n
Mr. Gossett\u2019s first cousin Neal L. Gossett confirmed the death to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Mr. Gossett was 46 when he played Emil Foley, the Marine drill instructor from hell who ultimately shapes the humanity of an emotionally damaged young Naval aviation recruit (Richard Gere) in \u201cAn Officer and a Gentleman<\/a>\u201d (1982). Reviewing the movie in The New York Times, Vincent Canby described<\/a> Sergeant Foley as a cruel taskmaster \u201crecycled as a man of recognizable cunning, dedication and humor\u201d revealed in \u201cthe kind of performance that wins awards.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Gossett told The Times that he had recognized the role\u2019s worth immediately. \u201cThe words just tasted good,\u201d he recalled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n When he accepted the 1983 best supporting actor Oscar, he was the first Black performer to win in that category \u2014 and only the third (after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney Poitier) to win an Academy Award for acting.<\/p>\n He had already won an Emmy as Fiddler, the mentor of the lead character, Kunta Kinte (LeVar Burton), in the blockbuster 1977 mini-series \u201cRoots<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Fiddler, an enslaved man on an 18th-century Virginia plantation, was, as the name suggested, a musician. Mr. Gossett was not thrilled about the role at first. \u201cWhy choose me to play the Uncle Tom?\u201d he asked in a 2018 Television Academy video interview<\/a>. But he came to admire the survival skills of forebears like Fiddler, he said, and based the character on his grandparents and a great-grandmother.<\/p>\n The portrayal, he said, became \u201ca tribute to all those people who taught me how to behave.\u201d<\/p>\n Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. was born on May 27, 1936, in Brooklyn, the only child of Louis Gossett, a porter, and Helen (Wray) Gossett, a nurse. He made his Broadway debut when he was 17 and still a student at Abraham Lincoln High School on Ocean Parkway.<\/p>\n While healing after a basketball injury, he appeared in a school play, just to occupy his time. Impressed, a teacher suggested that he audition for \u201cTake a Giant Step<\/a>,\u201d a play by Louis Peterson that was opening at the Lyceum Theater in the fall of 1953. He won the lead role, that of Spencer Scott, a troubled adolescent. Brooks Atkinson of The Times praised his \u201cadmirable and winning performance,\u201d one that conveyed \u201cthe whole range of Spencer\u2019s turbulence.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Sidney Fields devoted a column in The Sunday Mirror to the young man, who shared his career plans. \u201cI always wanted to study pharmacy,\u201d Mr. Gossett said. \u201cBut now after college I\u2019ll try acting. I know it\u2019s a tough business, but if I fail, I\u2019ll have the pharmacy degree to fall back on.\u201d<\/p>\n He ended up majoring in drama (and minoring in pharmacy) while on a basketball scholarship at New York University. In 1955, he returned to Broadway, in William Marchant\u2019s \u201cThe Desk Set.\u201d By the time he graduated, acting was paying him more than any basketball team would.<\/p>\n He made his film debut in \u201cA Raisin in the Sun<\/a>\u201d (1961), an adaptation of the Lorraine Hansberry play, performing alongside Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee as an annoying college man. He had appeared onscreen only twice before \u2014 in two episodes of \u201cThe Big Story,\u201d an NBC drama series, in 1957 and 1958.<\/p>\n Before film stardom, Mr. Gossett had sustained a thriving theater career. In less than a decade he landed six Broadway roles, including that of a Harlem hustler in \u201cTambourines to Glory\u201d (1963), a South African grandfather\u2019s servant in \u201cThe Zulu and the Zayda\u201d (1965), a lawyer who had killed a white man in a civil rights demonstration in \u201cMy Sweet Charlie\u201d (1966) and the Congolese leader Patrice Lumumba in \u201cDangerous Angels\u201d (1971).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the mid-1960s, he replaced the actor playing the big-time boxing promoter Eddie Satin in the musical \u201cGolden Boy,\u201d starring Sammy Davis Jr. His most unfortunate role may have been as a Black man with a white slave in \u201cCarry Me Back to Morningside Heights\u201d (1968), a comedy written by Robert Alan Aurthur and directed by Sidney Poitier. The play, which Clive Barnes of The Times called racist, closed after a week.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Gossett never committed to another Broadway role. But he appeared for four nights as the flashy lawyer Billy Flynn in the musical \u201cChicago\u201d in 2002.<\/p>\n His dozens of feature films included \u201cThe Landlord\u201d (1970), in which he played a man on the brink of insanity; \u201cTravels With My Aunt\u201d (1972); and \u201cThe Deep\u201d (1977), as a Bahamian drug dealer. His later films included \u201cDiggstown<\/a>\u201d (1992) and Sam Shepard\u2019s \u201cCurse of the Starving Class\u201d (1994).<\/p>\n Mr. Gossett was seen in more than 100 television series, including \u201cThe Partridge Family\u201d and \u201cMadame Secretary,\u201d and played the title role, a Columbia anthropology professor who investigates crimes, in \u201cGideon Oliver\u201d (1989).<\/p>\n Mr. Gossett also appeared in many television movies, among them \u201cThe Lazarus Syndrome\u201d (1978), about a cardiologist; \u201cA Gathering of Old Men<\/a>\u201d (1987), about a Black man who kills in self-defense; \u201cStrange Justice\u201d (1999), about the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation process (he played the presidential adviser Vernon Jordan); and \u201cLackawanna Blues\u201d (2005), based on Ruben Santiago-Hudson\u2019s play. His other TV-movie roles included the Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat<\/a> and the baseball star Satchel Paige.<\/p>\n He was seen last year in the film version of the Broadway musical \u201cThe Color Purple.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Gossett\u2019s marriage to Hattie Glascoe in 1964 lasted only five months.He and Christina Mangosing married in 1973, had one child and divorced after two years. His 1987 marriage to Cyndi James Reese ended in divorce in 1992.<\/p>\n Mr. Gossett is survived by his sons, Satie and Sharron Gossett, and several grandchildren.<\/p>\n In the Television Academy interview, Mr. Gossett urged fellow actors to help effect political and social change in a disturbing world. \u201cThe arts can achieve it overnight,\u201d he said. \u201cMillions of people are watching.\u201d He added: \u201cWe can get to them quicker than anybody else.\u201d<\/p>\n Michael S. Rosenwald contributed reporting.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n