MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
One of Hollywood's most versatile actors has died. Louis Gossett Jr. was 87 years old. Gossett racked up hundreds of onscreen credits during a trailblazing career that was seven decades long. NPR's Neda Ulaby has a remembrance.
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: Louis Gossett Jr., whose intense and angular face you know from the movies and TV, starred on Broadway as a teenager. He acted alongside Maya Angelou, Marilyn Monroe, Sidney Poitier and in the 1964 musical "Golden Boy" with Sammy Davis Jr.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSICAL, "GOLDEN BOY")
LOUIS GOSSETT JR: (As Eddie Satin, singing) Pretty women, blue-eyed or brown - how they drive you crazy, how they drag you down.
ULABY: The soaring young star was soon flown to Hollywood by the studios.
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GOSSETT: I was treated like a king - in first class and in limousines.
ULABY: And, as Gossett told NPR's Michel Martin in 2010, he was given a glamorous rental car.
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GOSSETT: Ford Fairlane Galaxie 500 with a hardtop and was white on the outside and red on the inside. And I was feeling like you couldn't touch me with a 6-foot pole. And it was only a 20-minute drive from the rental car to the hotel, which took 4 1/2 hours. I was stopped every 15 to 20 minutes because the police stopped me and wanted to know who the hell I was.
MICHEL MARTIN: No, not just once, but what, like...
GOSSETT: Oh, 4 1/2 hours' worth.
ULABY: His ordeal with Hollywood racism was just beginning.
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GOSSETT: And that night, I wound up being handcuffed to a tree for three hours for walking in Beverly Hills after 9.
ULABY: But Gossett was unstoppable. He showed up on TV's "The Partridge Family," "Bonanza," "The Jeffersons," "Little House On The Prairie," then 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 ad-libbed this transcendent line.
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GOSSETT: (As Fiddler) There's going to be another day. You hear me? There's going to be another day.
ULABY: Louis Gossett Jr. won an Emmy for the role. A few years later, he made history - the first Black supporting actor to win an Oscar. In 1983's "An Officer And A Gentleman," he played a tough drill sergeant attempting to break 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 ain't going to quit.
GOSSETT: (As Sgt. Emil Foley) Spell it. D-O-R.
GERE: (As Zack Mayo) I ain't going to quit.
GOSSETT: (As Sgt. Emil Foley) Yeah. Then you can be free. And you and your daddy can get drunk and go whore chasing together.
GERE: (As Zack Mayo) No, sir.
GOSSETT: (As Sgt. Emil Foley) D-O-R.
GERE: (As Zack Mayo) I ain't going to quit.
GOSSETT: (As Sgt. Emil Foley) All right. Then you can forget it. You're out.
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GOSSETT: I didn't get any phone calls except congratulatory phone calls and no real offers.
ULABY: Gossett on NPR in 1986, just three years after his Oscar win.
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GOSSETT: I think it has to do with racism, but I have to deal with subliminal racism, the way things have been. They'd have nothing. They didn't know what to do with me. I've yet to carry a movie like an Eastwood or a Redford, and that kind of gnaws at me a bit.
ULABY: It gnawed at him a lot. Here's Gossett, 24 years later, on NPR again.
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GOSSETT: You look at my track record over a 55-year period of all the awards. I - maybe I should be kind of closer to Clint Eastwood, don't you think? If you think about the 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 worked a 12-step program.
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GOSSETT: In my program, I had to get rid of what is a killer for anyone, actually, and that's resentment.
ULABY: Addiction and racism, Gossett said, were soul-killing diseases he fought passionately. Gossett never got to be an A-list movie star, but he inspired generations of fellow actors.
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FANTASIA BARRINO: (Singing) We thank you for everything that you've done, oh...
ULABY: One of Lou Gossett Jr.'s last films was recent, "The Color Purple." Its younger stars paid him respect in this on-set video that circulated on YouTube.
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BARRINO: (Singing) ...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 an awesome man.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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