The actor Louis Gosset Jr dies. known for his memorable role in “Officer and Gentelman”

Louis Gossett Jr, the first American to win Oscar for best actor in secondary role, is dead at 87.

New York-born actor won the Academy award in 1982 for his role as Sergeant Emil Foley in the film “A Officer and a Gentleman”. In this movie, he had a major role in Richard Gere.

Gossett also won an Emmy in 1978 for his role in Roots, the innovative mini-servative television material.

His death was confirmed by his family for CBS television BBC partner. No cause of death was given.

Gossett made his debut in Broadway as a teenager and later played on the show like A Raisin in the Sun and Golden Boy.

He continued to receive positive assessments from criticism during a career of six decades.

Gosset continued acting in later life, and his final role was in the re - creation of the 2023 Museum of The Color Purple.

In the film, a re-imagin of Alice Walker's 1982 novel, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, he played Ol'ster Johnson, Albert “Mister” Johnson, played by Coleman Domingo.

Writing in the Instagram, Domingo called it “a real giant. A true legend”

“What an honour I have had the opportunity to donate flowers on the last day of his latest film “The Color Purple”, where he played my father,” he wrote.

“Fantasia [Barrino] sang it well... He ran his race for us. We are indebted forever. Let us stand firm upon his shoulders. Raise it today. RIP”

Barrino, who played the main character Celie in the film, also wrote: “Louis Gossett Jr, what a wonderful man you were and the stories you told us, I will never forget. ”

She added that he had “opened the way for the close-American actors and actors”.

Gossett also played at Backstairs at the White House, The Story of Satchel Page, The Josephine Baker Story, for which he won a Golden Globe and Roots Revisited.

He also played science fiction in the 1980s, Enemy Mine, like alien Jeriba Shigan, along with Dennis Quaid.