Louis Gossett Jr., the first black man in the United States to win the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, has died at the age of 87.According to local media, today, Friday.
Gossett died Thursday night in Los Angeles of unspecified causes, according to his family, reported by US media outlets such as CBS.
In 1983, he won an Academy Award for his role as a drill sergeant. In the film “Officer and Gentleman” (“Officer and Gentleman” in Spain, “Reto al Destiny” in Latin America). This film also earned him a Golden Globe Award.
With a prolific career, Gossett Jr. starred in more than 60 films, and was the third black actor, after Hattie McDaniel and Sidney Poitier, to win an Academy Award.
He also participated in many television seriesAmong them is the series “Roots,” whose final episode in 1977 was watched by more than 100 million viewers, and which was nominated six times for the Emmys, the most prestigious award on American television.
The New Yorker, who announced in 2010 that he had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, fostered a tough-guy image in action films, including Iron Eagle (1986).
In his memoirs, “Actor and Gentleman” chronicles his difficult beginnings as a black actor, including his first trip to Los Angeles in the 1960s.The police arrested him four times.
He divorced his third wife in 1992 and lived in Malibu, California. He was the father of two children.
