Hollywood movie star and civil rights activist Olivia Gossett Junior
has passed away at the age of 87.
The Academy Award winner made history by becoming the first
African American to win the coveted award for Best Supporting
Actor,
The movie
1982's An Officer and a Gentleman.
CNN's Stephanie Elam shares the legacy he left behind,
both on and off the screen.
Louis Gossett Junior played some of TV,
stage and film's most recognized characters.
But behind the scenes, he was an activist with an
audacious goal
ending Racism.
Gossett debuted on stage as a teenager.
A basketball injury had knocked him off the court.
He signed up for an acting class and found his
calling.
I grew up with this this
ability to to seek anything I want without the shadows
of my mind.
That first Broadway role was in a play aptly named
Take a Giant Step.
Other parts followed, like The Blacks and A Raisin in
the Sun.
Gossett continued to hone his craft with an eye toward
Hollywood,
taking classes alongside Marilyn Monroe and Martin Landau.
But as a black actor,
it wasn't easy. I had to relearn the importance of
what it takes to to
to survive in this town and I had to act
as if I was second class and
I had to do it
ingest the the, the, the onus of being an African
American person in America.
In 1961, Goss had made his silver screen premiere in
the film version of A Raisin in the Sun.
Well, I'm a poet, philosopher,
poet. During the 70s he appeared in several blaxploitation films
but struggled to land significant and good paying roles.
That all changed in 1977 when he played Fiddler in
the ground breaking TV miniseries Roots.
Play me, a song I wants to hear.
Gossett initially didn't want the part,
he explained in this Television Academy Foundation interview.
They started doing the research and I realized
there's no such thing as an Uncle Tom.
And those particular people, those Step and Fetchits,
those particular people, If they had not survived,
I wouldn't be sitting.
He earned an Emmy for his breakout performance and Roots,
but it was his 1982 portrayal of a Marine drill
instructor.
You said you wanted to meet me in private,
and an officer and a Gentleman that thrusts Gossett into
bona fide stardom.
He's the only black actor that went up for the
Officer and Gentleman part.
And I got it. Gossett won an Oscar for Best
Supporting Actor.
Look at me when I talk to you.
He went on to play more tough military roles in
the Iron Eagle movies and the miniseries Sadat.
I would go to Jerusalem,
where he portrayed the late Egyptian leader
Speak Up Now. In 1992,
he won a Golden Globe playing civil rights activist Sydney
Williams and HB OS The Josephine Baker Story.
But then the actor's career fell flat.
By the early 2000s, he was hooked on drugs and
alcohol.
Addictions, he said, were fueled by racism experienced throughout his
career.
By 2006, Gossett was sober and eager to deal with
racism head on.
He started A Racism, A nonprofit foundation dedicated to ending
racial prejudice,
starting with youngsters.
Early in 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer,
then went on to have a distinguished decade,
mostly in TV shows like Madam Secretary.
That is exactly what he would say,
and HBO's Watchmen.
Through it all, he continued to fight racism and set
an example as an actor,
as an activist and as a gentleman.