The Brief

LOS ANGELES — Louis Gossett Jr., the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar and an Emmy winner for his role in the seminal TV miniseries "Roots," has died. He was 87.

Gossett's first cousin Neal L. Gossett told The Associated Press that the actor died in Santa Monica, California. A statement from the family said Gossett died Friday morning. No cause of death was revealed.

Gossett's cousin remembered a man who walked with Nelson Mandela and who also was a great joke teller, a relative who faced and fought racism with dignity and humor.

"Never mind the awards, never mind the glitz and glamor, the Rolls-Royces and the big houses in Malibu. It's about the humanity of the people that he stood for," his cousin said.

Louis Gossett always thought of his early career as a reverse Cinderella story, with success finding him from an early age and propelling him forward, toward his Academy Award for "An Officer and a Gentleman."

Gossett broke through on the small screen as Fiddler in the groundbreaking 1977 miniseries "Roots," which depicted the atrocities of slavery on TV. The sprawling cast included Ben Vereen, LeVar Burton and John Amos.

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. He also won a Golden Globe for the same role.

"More than anything, it was a huge affirmation of my position as a Black actor," he wrote in his 2010 memoir, "An Actor and a Gentleman."

A lucky break

He had earned his first acting credit in his Brooklyn high school's production of "You Can't Take It with You" while he was sidelined from the basketball team with an injury.

"I was hooked — and so was my audience," he wrote in his memoir.

His English teacher urged him to go into Manhattan to try out for "Take a Giant Step." He got the part and made his Broadway debut in 1953 at age 16.

"I knew too little to be nervous," Gossett wrote. "In retrospect, I should have been scared to death as I walked onto that stage, but I wasn't."

Gossett attended New York University on a basketball and drama scholarship. He was soon acting and singing on TV shows hosted by David Susskind, Ed Sullivan, Red Buttons, Merv Griffin, Jack Paar and Steve Allen.

Gossett became friendly with James Dean and studied acting with Marilyn Monroe, Martin Landau and Steve McQueen at an offshoot of the Actors Studio taught by Frank Silvera.

In 1959, Gossett received critical acclaim for his role in the Broadway production of "A Raisin in the Sun" along with Sidney Poitier,Ruby Dee and Diana Sands.

He went on to become a star on Broadway, replacing Billy Daniels in "Golden Boy" with Sammy Davis Jr. in 1964.

Racism, L.A.-style

Gossett went to Hollywood for the first time in 1961 to make the film version of "A Raisin in the Sun." He had bitter memories of that trip, staying in a cockroach-infested motel that was one of the few places to allow Black people.

In 1968, he returned to Hollywood for a major role in "Companions in Nightmare," NBC's first made-for-TV movie that starred Melvyn Douglas, Anne Baxter and Patrick O'Neal.

This time, Gossett was booked into the Beverly Hills Hotel and Universal Studios had rented him a convertible. Driving back to the hotel after picking up the car, he was stopped by a Los Angeles County sheriff's officer who ordered him to turn down the radio and put up the car's roof before letting him go.

Within minutes, he was stopped by eight sheriff's officers, who had him lean against the car and made him open the trunk while they called the car rental agency before letting him go.

"Though I understood that I had no choice but to put up with this abuse, it was a terrible way to be treated, a humiliating way to feel," Gossett wrote in his memoir. "I realized this was happening because I was Black and had been showing off with a fancy car — which, in their view, I had no right to be driving."

After dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk and was stopped a block away by a police officer, who told him he broke a law prohibiting walking around residential Beverly Hills after 9 p.m. Two other officers arrived and Gossett said he was chained to a tree and handcuffed for three hours. He was eventually freed when the original police car returned.

"Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight," he wrote. "But it was not going to destroy me."

In the late 1990s, Gossett said he was pulled over by police on the Pacific Coast Highway while driving his restored 1986 Rolls Royce Corniche II. The officer told him he looked like someone they were searching for, but the officer recognized Gossett and left.

He founded the Eracism Foundation to help create a world where racism doesn't exist.

A near-miss with the Manson family

Gossett made a series of guest appearances on such shows as "Bonanza," "The Rockford Files," "The Mod Squad," "McCloud" and a memorable turn with Richard Pryor on "The Partridge Family."

In August 1969, Gossett had been partying with members of the Mamas and the Papas when they were invited to actor Sharon Tate's house. He headed home first to shower and change clothes. As he was getting ready to leave, he caught a news flash on TV about Tate's murder. She and others were killed by Charles Manson's associates that night.

"There had to be a reason for my escaping this bullet," he wrote.

Louis Cameron Gossett was born on May 27, 1936, in the Coney Island section of Brooklyn, New York, to Louis Sr., a porter, and Hellen, a nurse. He later added Jr. to his name to honor his father.

"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 Dave Karger's 2024 book "50 Oscar Nights."

He said his statue was in storage.

"I'm going to donate it to a library so I don't have to keep an eye on it," he said in the book. "I need to be free of it."

Wins but no leads

Gossett appeared in such TV movies as "The Story of Satchel Paige," "Backstairs at the White House, "The Josephine Baker Story," for which he won another Golden Globe, and "Roots Revisited."

But he said winning an Oscar didn't change the fact that all his roles were supporting ones.

He played an obstinate patriarch in the 2023 remake of "The Color Purple."

Gossett struggled with alcohol and cocaine addiction for years after his Oscar win. He went to rehab, where he was diagnosed with toxic mold syndrome, which he attributed to his house in Malibu.

In 2010, Gossett announced he had prostate cancer, which he said was caught in the early stages. In 2020, he was hospitalized with COVID-19.

He also is survived by sons Satie, a producer-director from his second marriage, and Sharron, a chef whom he adopted after seeing the 7-year-old in a TV segment on children in desperate situations. His first cousin is actor Robert Gossett.

Gossett's first marriage to Hattie Glascoe was annulled. His second, to Christina Mangosing, ended in divorce in 1975 as did his third to actor Cyndi James-Reese in 1992.

On Friday, Southern California Edison filed lawsuits against Los Angeles County and several other agencies over their alleged roles in the Eaton Fire.

Two lawsuits were filed.

In one suit, the utility company alleges Southern California Gas delayed shutting off gas in the burn area for several days after the fire, making the blaze worse.

“SoCalGas’ design and actions caused gas leaks, gas fires, reignition of fires, gas explosions and secondary ignitions during the critical early stages of the Eaton Fire,” according to the suit.

The claim goes on to say this contributed to the spread of the fire and made firefighting and evacuation efforts more difficult.

In the second suit, the utility company alleges the Eaton Fire was made worse by the local government response, “including due to the failures of LASD, LACoFD, OEM and GENASYS in issuing timely evacuation alerts and notifications,” the claim reads.

The same filing says L.A. County was to blame for vegetation and overgrown brush in the Eaton Canyon area that fueled the blaze.

It also named the city of Pasadena and its utility system, Pasadena Water and Power, the city of Sierra Madre, Kinneloa Irrigation District, Rubio Cañon Land & Water Association, Las Flores Water Company and Lincoln Avenue Water Company as parties responsible for water systems running dry in Altadena as the fire broke out.

Edison says hydrants running dry compounded the extent of the disaster.

Those claims will be heard in the L.A. County Superior Court, which is also handling L.A. County’s lawsuit against SoCal Edison.

Edison itself is the subject of hundreds of lawsuits from survivors of the Eaton Fire, which could cost the company billions of dollars in settlements.

Edison has said its equipment likely sparked the Eaton Fire and filed these suits, in part, because it believes these various entities should share some of the blame for the disaster, which resulted in the destruction of thousands of buildings and the deaths of 19 people.

A compensation program Edison established for fire survivors who forgo suing the company has made settlement offers to more than 80 of those who applied.

A new organization is taking over production of the MLK Day Parade, almost 40 years after the first parade was held in South L.A. to commemorate the civil rights leader.

Bakewell Media, publisher of the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper (a partner of The LA Local), was granted the permit in September to organize the parade for the first time by the Los Angeles Board of Police Commissioners. Formerly called the Kingdom Day Parade, the parade has been rebranded as the Los Angeles Official Martin Luther King Day Parade. The parade was previously produced and organized by Adrian Dove and the L.A. chapter of the Congress of Racial Equality California (CORE-CA).

With less than a week before the parade kicks off, LA Local reporter LaMonica Peters sat down with Danny Bakewell Jr., president and executive editor of the LA Sentinel, to discuss the details and what attendees should expect.

This Jan. 12 interview has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Why did you decide to produce the MLK Day Parade this year?

Bakewell: It all started because Adrian Dove, who was the previous promoter, had announced that he was retiring. When he announced he was retiring, LAPD, city council offices and other people said, “Hey, we still want to do the MLK Day parade. Would you guys be interested? You have the infrastructure to put it together.” And we said yes.

What’s different about this year’s production?

We’re going to start the parade with a singer performing “Lift Every Voice.” We’re going to play the message from Bernice King at the start of the show. Obviously, we have Cedric the Entertainer as our grand marshal to add the entertainment value, but the community has always been and will continue to be a major part of this parade.

Is ABC 7 covering the parade this year? 

It’s still going to be televised by ABC. We’re working diligently on how the show is going to be, but ABC has been a great partner.

What was the preparation for this parade?

Thanks to our corporate sponsors, we have a number of bands. The truth is, particularly in LAUSD at this time, and other school districts, they don’t have the funding to just get a bus and get here. I can’t say enough about Airbnb to Bank of America, all of our corporate sponsors, who are supporting all of the youth organizations.

Were there any unexpected challenges while preparing for this parade? 

This [The LA Sentinel office on Crenshaw Blvd.] is usually our command center during The Taste of Soul. It dawned on me last week that we’re going to be a mile away [from the parade route]. So, we made the decision to bring in a trailer to be our office at the corner of King and Crenshaw boulevards.

Any special guests this year besides the grand marshal?

I’m working on a surprise guest to be the singer for the national anthem. No matter what, we will give tribute to the Black national anthem “Lift Every Voice” as loud as we can next Monday.

What’s the long-term vision for this parade, if Bakewell Media continues to produce it?

We see the MLK Day Parade, and we want the world to see and expect to see this parade, the same way they see the Macy’s Parade, the Hollywood Parade or the Rose Parade. BET has come in this year as a partner. So there’s an opportunity to possibly do a national broadcast on BET. Not that we would lose our local television, but we see this as a major parade in this community and in the national African American community, celebrating the great work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. So, we are very excited.

Bits of conversation drift out of Aladdin Used Books as people lined up at the register with stacks of books.

The bustle of activity is bittersweet as the Koreatown bookstore will close its doors at the end of January after 13 years in the neighborhood.

Jina Lee, store manager, said declining sales at the Koreatown branch led to the decision to close the store. In recent years, staffing at the 5,000-square-foot store on the third floor of Madang Mall dropped from six to two, Lee said.

“This was a happy place for everyone,” she said, “but we were struggling.”

On a recent January afternoon, the shop looked lively as customers took advantage of the clearance sale on Korean and English books, CDs, DVDs and other media.

Koreatown resident Jin Lee wishes he visited the bookstore more often.

“It would have been great if it had been this crowded all the time,” Lee said. “But nowadays, people don’t read paper books and prefer devices, so it’s hard for all bookstores.”

Some customers traveled from as far as Orange County and the Inland Empire to visit one last time.

Minjung Kim, who moved from Koreatown to Fullerton five years ago, still made trips to the bookstore after she moved away.

“It’s the only place that sells this many new and used Korean books,” she said.

Each visit to the bookstore was important to David Artiga of Pomona, because it gave him a chance to connect with friends over literature.

“I feel like this is really negative for the community,” he said. “The importance of having a well-versed society, keeping in touch with literature and art is so important. And now this place is just going to be gone.”

South Korea-based Aladdin Used Books opened its first U.S. brick-and-mortar store in Los Angeles in 2013. The store carries around 50,000 new and used books, with a majority in Korean.

Customers will still be able to order books through Aladdin’s website after the store closes.

Ken Derick, a Koreatown resident, walked around the store aisles with a stack of books.

“It’s like we’re kind of moving towards a new technology, like everything’s virtual and online,” he said.

Longtime customer Anthony Kim said he’s enjoyed looking for gems in the English-language shelves.

“My Korean ability is rather limited but I’ve always enjoyed browsing their English language sections,” he said. “And now that I have a niece and nephew, their children’s book section has always been a great place to pick up new books for them.”

Valerie Laguna perused the shop’s CD section, a bygone experience in the era of streaming.

“I really like their CD collection and their literature collection they have in English,” she said.

“I was so sad about it, I immediately texted my friend,” she said. “I’ve gotten so many of my favorite books and my favorite CDs from this place. I feel like losing a place like this is just so sad and makes a huge dent in the community and culture.”

Less than a mile away on Western Avenue, Happy Bookstore owner Jung Jae-seung said it has been difficult for bookstores for some time now. His Korean-language bookstore is also struggling in an era when so many people have abandoned print media.

“It’s really about how long printed books can survive,” Jung said. “From that point of view, it’s hard to be optimistic.”

South L.A. or South Central? More than 20 years ago, that question came with high emotions for some residents who were sick of the stereotypes they saw in media coverage of their neighborhoods.

So in 2003, the Los Angeles City Council renamed the collection of communities south of the 10 freeway in an attempt to cut ties with the connotations of poverty and crime that some believe came to represent South Central after the turbulence of the 1980s and ‘90s. Today, you see South L.A. on official documents, maps and even historical and cultural districts.

Even though city officials moved to wipe away the old name, some locals never stopped calling the area South Central — a name that for them represents history, resilience and Black and Latino culture.

“I think it will always be South Central for its residents and for the people that were born and raised here,” said Evelyn Alfaro-Macias, a social worker who was raised in Historic South Central and whose office is on Hoover Street. “It means home. It means culture. People should respect the name South Central.”

What and where is South LA, anyway?

By the early 2000s, television news and pop culture had given South Central a reputation for violence and chaos that some were eager to shake.

Helen Johnson, a resident of Vermont Square, helped lead the campaign to change the name.

“I think the media can make you or either break you,” 72-year-old Johnson told reporters in 2003 after the city council approved the name change, according to the L.A. Times. “This is what you’ve done to us. You’ve broke us.”

Supporters of the change included then-Councilmember Janice Hahn, who is now a county supervisor and said at the time that the South Central name had become “mostly derogatory.”

L.A. Mayor Karen Bass, who was working then as executive director of the nonprofit Community Coalition, said the area’s image problem wasn’t just about its name.

“If the media paid a little more attention to covering positive things in the community, that will also help,” Bass said, according to an L.A. Times report.

The LA Local has reached out Bass and Hahn’s offices, as well as L.A. City Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson.

The exact borders of South Los Angeles, or the area formerly known as South Central, are fuzzy.

The South Central name originally only applied to the neighborhood around Central Avenue south of downtown Los Angeles, but it spread west as populations grew.

City planning documents today designate a strip of neighborhoods between Interstate 110 and Arlington Avenue as South Los Angeles and tag the Central Avenue neighborhood as Historic South Central. Others, including academics and the city tourism board, use a map of South Los Angeles that stretches to the border of Culver City.

This is what the community told us

Some businesses in the area adopted the South L.A. name, notably South LA Cafe, the coffee shop that has grown to five locations and become a local institution.

More recently, some groups have made a concerted effort to embrace South Central, like the South Central Run Club or South Central Clips, an Instagram-based group that sells skatewear-inspired “South Central” apparel. (Even South LA Cafe today sells some merch with the South Central name.)

Several locals told The LA Local the official designation never changed anything for them.

“It’s South Central for me. That’s where my roots are,” April Brown said. “When you go anywhere across the country, across the world and you say South Central, they know exactly what you’re talking about.”

To Emily Amador, the name change erases the history of South Central, including “the Black migration that occurred, redlining that created what we know today to be South Central and the demographics, which are here today, which is Black and brown and undocumented.”

Ulysses Alfaro, who was born and raised in the Historic South Central neighborhood, said he uses South L.A. with people from out of town but South Central with locals.

South L.A. is a geographic designator, he said, but he considers South Central to be an identity: “That’s where the grinders are, the hard-working people that work their butts off, their asses off. The ones that keep the city running.”