Louis Cameron Gossett Jr., a giant among men, stood 6-feet-4. A high school injury first turned him from the basketball court to the stage, sparking a long career on Broadway and the silver screen that included an Academy Award.
Gossett died March 29 at a rehabilitation facility in Santa Monica, California, at age 87.
Born in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, he was 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. He was healing from a basketball injury when a teacher suggested that he audition for “Take a Giant Step,” a play by Louis Peterson that was opening at the Lyceum Theater in the fall of 1953.
Gossett won the lead role, that of Spencer Scott, a troubled adolescent. His performance garnered so many great reviews that Sidney Fields devoted a column in The Sunday Mirror to the young Gossett.
“I always wanted to study pharmacy,” Gossett told the columnist. “But now after college I’ll try acting. I know it’s a tough business, but if I fail, I’ll have the pharmacy degree to fall back on.”
He did study pharmacy while on a basketball scholarship at New York University. In 1955, he returned to Broadway and was making far more money than basketball would ever pay. Gossett has more than 200 credits over a screen, stage and television career that spanned more than 60 years.
Louis Gossett Jr. PHOTO: WIKIMEDIA
When he won the Oscar for best supporting actor for “An Officer and a Gentleman” in 1983, Gossett became the first Black performer to win in that category and only the third Black person after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney Poitier to win an Academy Award for acting.
In paying tribute to Gossett, the film’s director, Taylor Hackford, noted that the role of Sargent Foley was originally written as a white man, until Hackford visited the Navy Officers Flight Training Center in Pensacola, Florida, and saw that many of the drill instructors were Black. When he met Gossett, he hired him on the spot.
Lou Gossett’s Sergeant Foley may have been the first Black character in American cinema to have absolute authority over white characters. By the time he won his Oscar, he had already won an Emmy as Fiddler, the mentor of the lead character Kunta Kinte, played by LeVar Burton in the blockbuster 1977 mini-series “Roots.”
But success didn’t shield him from racism. He often spoke about the time he was detained by the Beverly Hills police and tied to a tree for hours, all because he was driving a Rolls Royce while Black.
He was very open about his years of addiction. But none of the setbacks stopped the inimitable Gossett who became best known for playing decent, plain-spoken men, often authority figures.
I first met Gossett while I was doing a BET documentary, “Dark Passages,” about the Atlantic slave trade. We hired Lou to read several slave narratives that had been uncovered by historian and Harvard professor the late Nathan Huggins.
Over the years I got to know Lou Gossett through many of the wonderful causes he supported. He was a champion of justice, a great man, a great cook and a great actor.
In a recent Television Academy interview, he urged fellow actors to help effect political and social change in a disturbing world.
“The arts can achieve it overnight,” he said. “Millions of people are watching.” He added, “We can get to them quicker than anybody else.”
Gossett is survived by his sons, Satie and Sharron Gossett, and several grandchildren. We will miss you Louis Gossett Jr. Rest in peace and power.
