Louis Gossett Jr., First Black Man to Win Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Dead at 87
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Louis Gossett Jr., the celebrated An Officer and a Gentleman actor who became the first Black man to win the Best Supporting Actor Oscar, has died at the age of 87.
“It is with our heartfelt regret to confirm our beloved father passed away this morning,” the actor’s family said in a statement Friday (via CNN). “We would like to thank everyone for their condolences at this time. Please respect the family’s privacy during this difficult time.” No cause of death was provided.
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Over an onscreen career that spanned seven decades, Gossett became the first Black man to win Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards in 1983; he received the same award at that year’s Golden Globes for An Officer and a Gentleman, and earned a second Best Supporting Actor (for television) Golden Globe for 1992’s The Josephine Baker Story. In 1977, Gossett was awarded the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Actor for a Single Appearance in a Drama Series for the miniseries Roots.
The New York City-born Gossett spent the first decade of his career in the theater, making his Broadway debut in 1953 — at the age of 17 and while still in high school — in the play Take a Giant Step. In 1959, he starred in Broadway’s A Raisin in the Sun and made his film debut two years later when that play was adapted for the big screen in 1961. The actor spent the majority of the Sixties in television roles before returning to film for Hal Ashby’s The Landlord in 1970.
After appearing in films like The Laughing Policeman, The White Dawn, and The Deep, Gossett landed his Emmy-winning breakout role as Fiddler in 1977’s Roots. Finding success on television, the actor spent the next five years predominantly on the small screen — including starring as Satchel Paige in a TV biopic about the Hall of Fame pitcher — before he was cast as strict Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley in 1982’s An Officer and a Gentleman opposite Richard Gere.
“More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor,” Gossett wrote in his memoir of his Oscar win. Now an established character actor, Gossett starred in films like Iron Eagle, The Principal, Enemy Mine, and Jaws 3-D in the Eighties, and continued to work steadily over the ensuing decades.
Most recently, Gossett appeared as an older version of the superhero Hooded Justice in the acclaimed HBO series Watchmen and played the role of Ol’ Mister in the 2023 big-screen musical adaptation of The Color Purple. He is set to make a now-posthumous voice appearance in John Krasinski’s upcoming movie IF.
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