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Gossett won the award for An Officer And A Gentleman, and also got an Emmy for Roots. More recent prominent roles for the Broadway star and civil rights activist were in The Color Purple and Watchmen.
He won his Academy Award for An Officer And A Gentleman.
Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries “Roots,” has died. He was 87. Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for “An Officer and a Gentleman.” He also was a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in “Golden Boy” with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964 and recently played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of “The Color Purple.”
Louis Gossett Jr., who became the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar, for An Officer and a Gentleman, five years after earning an Emmy for his role in the seminal TV miniseries Roots, has died. He was 87.
Louis Gossett Jr revealed he 'wasn't afraid to die' in his final interview two months before his death aged 87 on Thursday.