‘Shaft’ Star Richard Roundtree Dies

Prolific actor Richard Roundtree, who played the iconic lead role in the hit 1970s Shaft films, died Tuesday at 81.

Roundtree, a New Rochelle, New York, native, passed away after a brief battle with pancreatic cancer, according to Deadline. Roundtree starred in more than 75 films, but was best known for his role as detective John Shaft in the groundbreaking, Oscar-winning 1971 film. Roundtree would star in several other “blaxploitiation” films in the 1970s, including Shaft sequels Shaft’s Big Score! and Shaft in Africa. 

Roundtree would reprise his role in the 2000 Shaft remake and its 2019 Shaft sequel. He also appeared in such films as City Heat (1984), Original Gangstas (1996), Se7en (1995) and Moving On (2022).

On television, Roundtree appeared in such shows as Roots, Murder, She Wrote, A Different World, Amen, Soul Food, Magnum, P.I. and Being Mary Jane. More recently, Roundtree starred in Netflix’s comedy series Family Reunion opposite Loretta Devine and Tia Mowry from 2019 to 2022. Last year, he starred in the second season of OWN’s Ava DuVernay-created drama Cherish the Day. 

Celebrities took to social media to remember Roundtree, including his Shaft co-star Samuel L. Jackson, who commented that Roundtree was “the best to ever do it.”