Actor Louis Gossett Jr. died this Thursday night in Santa Monica, California, the actor's cousin, Neal L. Gossett, told AP.
The causes of the death of the actor, who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010, have not been revealed.
Louis Gossett Jr. won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor in 1982 for his performance as the authoritarian Sergeant Emil Foley in Taylor Hackford's "Officer and Gentleman".
Four years earlier, he won an Emmy for his portrayal of Fiddler in the series "Roots", one of the first major television productions to directly address the crimes of racism and slavery.
Gossett received 6 more Emmy nominations over the years, including for his portrayal of Anwar el-Sadat, the Egyptian President who negotiated peace with Israel after the Six Day War, in the 1983 TV production "Sadat", which the actor later considered one of his favorite performances.
Variety magazine today recalls Louis Gossett Jr.'s performances in television productions such as "Backstairs at the White House", "Palmerstown, U.S.A.", "A Gathering of Old Men" and "Touched by an Angel", as well as his participation in "Boardwalk Empire" and "The Book of Negroes", two of his most recent works.
Last year he was the patriarch of the remake of "The Color Purple", the second film adaptation of the novel, after the film directed by Steven Spielberg in 1985.
Speaking to AP, Neal L. Gossett recalls his cousin as "a great joke teller" and also a man who admired Nelson Mandela and who faced and fought racism "with dignity and humor".
"It doesn't matter about the awards, it doesn't matter about the glitz and glamor, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. What matters is the humanity of the people he defended," said Neal L. Gossett.
