The Oscar-winning actor Louis Gossett Jr has died aged 87. Born in Coney Island in 1936, his father was a porter and his mother a nurse. He made his Broadway debut at 17 in Take a Giant Step (1953), opposite Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. This was followed by a role in The Desk Set (1955.)
In ‘A Poet of an Actor‘, a tribute for the Roger Ebert website, Brandon David Wilson reflects on the early days of Gossett’s long career.
“Gossett found his way to Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio, where he described himself in interviews as ‘the kid in the back of the room.’ In the front of the room there was Marilyn Monroe (she took a liking to the young Gossett and took him under her wing), Julie Harris, Lee Grant, and Sidney Poitier. Remarkable to consider how Gossett and Poitier’s paths crossed so early given that his career was destined to follow the trail blazed by Poitier. The times did not permit Gossett to aim for the leading man roles that Poitier engaged, but Gossett always seemed at peace with juicy supporting parts. Gossett would become a movie star, but at his core, he was always a New York stage actor.”
“So I am at the Actors Studio and there’s Brando and Marty Landau up front,” Gossett told the Los Angeles Times, recalling his first meeting with Marilyn. “She says ‘Where’s Lou?’ Everybody starts giggling at me. I think it was a joke [by his classmates]. There is no way I could sit next to her. That’s the effect Marilyn Monroe had on me.”
He also wrote about Marilyn in his memoir, An Actor and a Gentleman.
“The person I considered the most talented actor in my class was Marilyn Monroe. She would walk into class with Arthur Miller’s shirts tied at her waist, her feet in flip-flops, the sweet musky smell of Lifebuoy soap wafting after her. Her hair, pulled back with a rubber band, was always a little wet, as if she’d just stepped out of a shower. If she’d stayed with Miller, I believe she would easily have won five Academy Awards.
One afternoon I was sitting in my place on the Lower East Side when my phone rang. I picked it up, and a voice said, ‘Hi, Lou. It’s Marilyn.’ ‘Marilyn who?’ I answered, and when she said, ‘Marilyn from class,’ I had a genuine fit. She was asking me to be in her love scene from Tennessee Williams’ The Rose Tattoo at her next class. She was probably being nice to me because I wasn’t one of the stellar students in the class, like Sidney Poitier, and nobody else was asking me to do love scenes. But here she was, inviting me to play the sailor to her hot-blooded Serafina delle Rose.
I was a kid then, full of juice. I considered myself to be hot to trot, but I knew there was no way on earth I could play that scene. I was so starstruck, I wouldn’t have gotten out one word onstage. I must have stammered something, because she got off the line pretty fast, and I think it was Marty Landau who ended up playing that scene … To this day, if I catch a whiff of Lifebuoy soap, my olfactory senses take over and I am undeniably aroused.”
In 1959, Gossett was reunited with Poitier and Ruby Dee in Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun, and made his movie debut in the acclaimed 1961 adaptation. He gave an Emmy-winning performance in the 1977 TV miniseries, Roots; and in 1982, he became the first black performer to be named as Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards for his role in An Officer and a Gentleman.
Following this trailblazing achievement, Gossett won a Golden Globe as Best Supporting Actor for the 1989 TV movie, The Josephine Baker Story. In later years, he appeared in episodes of Boardwalk Empire and Watchmen. His final screen credit was as Ol’ Mister in Steven Spielberg’s 2023 musical remake of The Colour Purple.
Louis Gossett Jr. was married three times and had two sons. He died in a rehabilitation centre in Santa Monica on March 29, 2024.
The Marilyn Report 