Louis Gossett Jr., ‘An Officer and a Gentleman’ Oscar Winner, Dies at 87
variety.comEthan Shanfeld Louis Gossett Jr., who won a supporting actor Oscar for playing the hard-as-nails drill instructor in 1982’s “An Officer and a Gentleman” a few years after winning an Emmy for his role as the cunning Fiddler in “Roots,” has died, the AP reports.
He was 87. In Taylor Hackford’s “An Officer and a Gentleman,” Gossett’s Sgt. Emil Foley memorably drove Richard Gere’s character to the point of near collapse at a Navy flight school.
In addition to “An Officer and a Gentleman” Gossett is best known for films “Enemy Mine” (1985), in which he played an alien forced to come to terms with his human enemy when he and an astronaut played by Dennis Quaid find themselves stranded on a planet, and “Iron Eagle” (1986), in which he played an Air Force veteran who helps a young pilot find his father, who has been shot down and captured.
After his Emmy win for “Roots” in 1978, Gossett picked up a further six Emmy nominations over the years. He drew a nomination for portraying the Egyptian president who made peace with Israel in the 1983 TV movie “Sadat.” He was also nominated for his performance on the 1978 variety special “The Sentry Collection Presents Ben Vereen: His Roots”; for playing Levi Mercer in the 1979 NBC miniseries “Backstairs at the White House”; for lead actor in a drama series for “Palmerstown, U.S.A.” in 1981; for lead actor in a miniseries or special for the Volker Schlondorff-directed “A Gathering of Old Men” (1987), in which he starred with Richard Widmark and Holly Hunter; and for multiple appearances as Anderson Walker on CBS’ “Touched by an Angel” in 1997.
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