Louis Gossett Jr, the first black man to win an Oscar for best supporting actor, dies at 87
Louis Gossett Jr, the first black man to win a supporting actor Oscar for his role in An Officer And A Gentleman, has died aged 87.
The actor’s family released a statement confirming he died on Friday morning.
“It is with our heartfelt regret to confirm our beloved father passed away this morning,” the statement said.
“We would like to thank everyone for their condolences at this time. Please respect the family’s privacy during this difficult time.”
Gossett’s nephew told The Associated Press the actor was in Santa Monica, California, at the time.
No cause of death was revealed.
Gere and Gossett in An Officer And A Gentlemen. Pic: Everett/Shutterstock
Gossett became the third black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category in 1983.
He won for his performance as the intimidating Marine drill instructor in An Officer And A Gentleman opposite Richard Gere and Debra Winger in 1982.
He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.
“The Oscar gave me the ability of being able to choose good parts in movies like Enemy Mine, Sadat and Iron Eagle,” Gossett said in film expert, Dave Karger’s, 2024 book “50 Oscar Nights”.
He said at the time that his statue was in storage.
The star became the third black Oscar nominee in the supporting actor category. Pic: AP
Born on 27 May 1936, in Brooklyn, New York, Gossett later added Junior to his name to honour his father.
He first started acting in school productions and at the age of 16 made his Broadway debut in the play Take A Giant Step.
Having studied at New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship, the actor became friends with Hollywood great James Dean and studied acting alongside Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen.
In 1959 he gained critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of A Raisin In The Sun, and in 1961 appeared in the film version of the same production.
Gossett in Roots in 1977. Pic: Moviestore/Shutterstock
Gossett’s big break on the small screen was as Fiddler in the 1977 TV miniseries Roots, which depicted the atrocities of slavery.
He later won an Emmy Award for the role.
He also appeared in TV movies including The Story of Satchel Paige, Backstairs at the White House, The Josephine Baker Story – for which he won another Golden Globe – and Roots Revisited.
In 2023, he played patriarch, Ol’ Mister Johnson, in the musical remake of The Colour Purple, alongside Halle Bailey, Danielle Brooks and Colman Dolmingo.
Gossett was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2010 and hospitalised with COVID in 2020. Pic: AP
Throughout his career, Gossett was subject to racism, including an incident in the late 1990s, when he said he was pulled over by police while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II.
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An officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognised Gossett and left.
He later founded the Eracism Foundation to “help create a world where racism does not exist”, according to the foundation’s website.
In the years after his Academy win, Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mould syndrome – associated with prolonged exposure to mould which he attributed to his house in Malibu.
Pic: Paramount/Kobal/Shutterstock
In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages and in 2020, he went into hospital after contracting COVID-19.
The actor married three times, the third to actor Cyndi James-Reese. The pair divorced in 1992.
He is survived by his two sons – Satie, a producer and director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the seven-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations.
US
Donald Trump ‘not thinking about Melania’ when he paid off Stormy Daniels, says ex-lawyer Michael Cohen
Donald Trump “wasn’t thinking about (his wife) Melania” when he paid off a former porn star, his former lawyer has testified.
Michael Cohen told a court Mr Trump personally approved $130,000 in hush money to Stormy Daniels over an alleged 2006 sexual encounter.
The payout isn’t illegal, but Mr Trump is accused of falsifying records to hide it – a claim he denies.
On Monday, his trial in New York heard from Mr Cohen, once a lawyer and self-described “fixer” for the ex-president.
Mr Trump’s lawyers have painted the hush money as an attempt to protect his wife from rumours and upset.
Michael Cohen has himself been jailed over the payment to Daniels. Pic: Reuters
However, Mr Cohen said his boss was purely concerned with keeping the claims quiet as he ran for the presidency.
“He wasn’t thinking about Melania. This was all about the campaign,” he said, prompting Mr Trump to shake his head in response.
Mr Cohen told the court he’d heard Stormy Daniels was considering selling her story and he told his boss swift action was required.
Mr Trump denies the affair and his lawyers say Mr Cohen acted on his own – a claim he denied in court.
He told jurors in Manhattan that “everything required Mr Trump’s sign-off” and he was ordered to “just do it”.
Mr Cohen said he stumped up the $130,000 himself after Mr Trump told him he would pay him back.
He said he set up a shell company – listed as a “real estate consulting company” – to make the payment.
Stormy Daniels, pictured in January. Pic: AP
Prosecutors say Mr Trump later paid the money back and covered it up by recording it as a legal retainer fee.
He faces 34 counts of falsifying business records over the claims.
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Hear Trump and his lawyer discuss hush money
The court also heard a recording of a conversation between Mr Trump and Mr Cohen over hush money said to have been paid to another woman, former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who he also allegedly had an affair with.
Mr Cohen suggests in the recording setting up another company to repay David Pecker – who said he provided the $150,000 to cover up the story.
The former National Enquirer boss previously testified he bought the story to keep it hidden and eventually decided against seeking reimbursement.
Later in the recording, Mr Trump can be heard suggesting the $150,000 might be better off being paid in cash.
Mr Cohen told the court this was to “avoid any type of paper transaction”.
The 57-year-old – who once said he would take a bullet for Mr Trump – worked for him for nearly a decade.
Stormy Daniels, pictured in January. Pic: AP
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He pleaded guilty to violating campaign finance law in 2018 over the Stormy Daniels payment and was jailed, but at the time prosecutors did not bring charges against Mr Trump.
Mr Cohen’s credibility is in the sights of defence lawyers as he has previously admitted lying under oath.
Mr Trump – who will take on Joe Biden in his bid to become president again in November – is unlikely to face a custodial sentence if found guilty.
His other cases are potentially more damaging but mired in delays.
They concern allegations of keeping stacks of secret documents after leaving office and trying to overturn his 2020 election defeat. He denies the claims.
A livestream portal between Dublin and New York was temporarily shut down after “inappropriate behaviour” in the Irish capital.
Thousands of people have visited the two-way portal, which allows people on either side to see and interact with each other.
And while there have been a number of wholesome moments – including Irish dancing and even a proposal – a handful of people have behaved “inappropriately”, Dublin City Council has said.
Videos on social media have shown people on the Irish side flashing body parts, and displaying images of 9/11 and swear words on phone screens.
A woman was also escorted away by police after being seen grinding against the portal.
In a statement issued on Monday evening, a spokesperson for Dublin City Council said “technical solutions” to address this are being implemented in the next 24 hours.
People in each city could be seen greeting each other when the portal opened last week. Pic: Reuters
“We will continue to monitor the situation over the coming days with our partners in New York to ensure that Portals continue to deliver a positive experience for both cities and the world,” they said.
“The team at portals.org and partners are still working on improving the software for better stability and to prepare for Portals to expand to more locations on Earth.
“Those works are being done mostly at night and during those hours, the livestream might be paused.”
Dublin City Council noted there has been an increase in footfall since the Portal was unveiled in north Dublin, facing O’Connell Street. The New York portal is at the busy Manhattan junction of Broadway, Fifth Avenue and 23rd Street.
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Most interactions via the portals have been wholesome. Pic: Reuters
“The overwhelming majority of interactions are positive,” the spokesperson added. “We have seen families and friends unite, dancing moves being shared as well as new friendships being made. There was even a successful marriage proposal.
“The Portal offers a window to other cities and is connecting people and cultures in a unique manner – what we are seeing between Dublin and NY is reflective of a wider narrative of cultural behaviour.”
The Portals Organisation said: “We do not intend to suggest people to interact with Portals in any particular way – our goal is to open a window between far away places and cultures that allows people to interact freely with one another.
“We encourage people to be respectful and from our position as observers, we see that the absolute majority of experiences is on the bright side.”
In an earlier statement, they confirmed the livestream had been paused so they could “update the software used on the Portal”.
The new version of the ChatGPT AI chatbot has been unveiled and offers near-instant results across text, vision and audio, according to its maker.
OpenAI said it was much better at understanding visuals and sounds than previous versions.
It offers the prospect of real-time ‘conversations’ with the chatbot, including the ability to interrupt its answers.
The firm says it “accepts as input any combination of text, audio, and image and generates any combination of text, audio, and image outputs”.
GPT-4o is to be rolled out over the next few weeks amid a battle by tech firms to develop ever-more advanced artificial intelligence tools.
Monday’s announcement showed tasks such as real-time language translation; using its vision capability to solve a maths question on a piece of paper, and to guide a blind person around London.
GPT-4o can respond to audio in as little as 232 milliseconds, with an average of 320 milliseconds, which the company says is similar to human response time.
To try to ease concerns over bias, fairness and misinformation, the Microsoft-backed company says the new version has undergone extensive testing by 70 external experts.
It comes after Google earlier this year had a major PR blunder over images generated by its Gemini AI system.
GPT-4o model will be free, but premium ‘Plus’ users get a greater capacity limit for messages.
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Previous versions of the chatbot have caused unease in schools and universities due to some students using it to cheat by producing convincing essays.
When it launched two years ago, ChatGPT was said to be the fastest-ever app to reach 100 million active monthly users.
The announcement also stole a march on Google, which is expected to tomorrow show off its own new AI features at its annual developers’ conference.
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