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.

Malibu is pushing back the next phase of its speed camera program to November, originally set to start in September. During the 60-day warning period, drivers going 11 or more miles per hour over the speed limit will get a warning instead of a fine.

The delay, the city says, is needed so adjustments can be made to camera installations.

When fines start

The announcement last week came after a testing period in September recorded around 100,000 speeding violations in less than 10 days.

Enforcement at the 10 cameras along a 21-mile stretch of Pacific Coast Highway will start some time after the end of the warning period. According to the city, violations will result in fines, but not driver’s license points or insurance penalties.

Why Malibu added speed cameras

Since 2010, traffic collisions on that part of PCH have killed more than 60 people, the city says. In 2023 alone, there were 220 reported crashes there, with 93 injuries and seven deaths — including four Pepperdine University students who were standing along PCH when a driver hit and killed them. The driver, who is charged with murder, is scheduled to stand trial beginning Dec. 1.

Following that accident, Malibu City Council declared a local emergency over dangerous conditions posed by reckless and speeding drivers.

In 2024, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed SB 1297 into law to allow Malibu to install the speed cameras

Looking to say adios to your lawn by sheet mulching or to add a protective layer to your flower beds? Good news, you don’t need to pay for mulch or woodchips. You can instead get them for free in Southern California. Here are a few different ways, depending on your flexibility - and muscle power.

Free mulch piles

Municipalities across the region offer free mulch.

City of L.A.: You can grab mulch anytime from one of its free mulch piles.

O.C.: You can schedule a pick up from an greenery/landfill

Other cities: see below (or check out your own city government’s page).

• Riverside County Department of Waste Resources 
• City of Rialto Free Compost & Mulch 
• Burrtec's Coachella Valley Composting Facility. It is located at 87011 Landfill Rd in Coachella. 
• City of Rancho Mirage Free Compost and Mulch Program 
• https://www.cityofventura.ca.gov/2524/Free-Compost-Mulch-Program 

Free mulch delivery

If you don’t want to go pick up the free mulch yourself, consider ChipDrop. It’s a service that connects arborists with gardeners to deliver free wood chips.

Beware: you may get a lot of mulch. Like, a lot.

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Jenn Baughman

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LAist

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Connect with an arborist:

If you want to try to control the amount of mulch you get - or the date of delivery - you may want to consider talking to an individual arborist. They often end up with excess woodchips they need to get rid of, or take to the dump. If you call they might be happy to offload some for your garden.

Opponents of Proposition 40 have a message for voters: Don’t be fooled. The billionaire tax is a “Trojan horse” for new taxes on all Californians, ads proclaim. But is that true?

Tucked into the initiative is language granting the Legislature authority to amend the tax by a two-thirds vote “if the statute is consistent with and furthers the purposes of the 2026 Billionaire Tax Act.” Opponents argue lawmakers and a future governor could, with the stroke of a pen, expand the wealth tax to people with far less than $1 billion.

In a high-tax state, that argument could hold a lot of sway with voters.

Service Employees International Union-United Healthcare Workers West put Prop. 40 on the ballot; the initiative would levy a one-time, 5% tax on billionaire’s assets. The union rejects the premise of the ad. It says the tax is limited to billionaires and any legislative amendment would have to hew closely to that purpose. Dave Regan, president of SEIU-UHW, said opponents’ ads are pure scare tactics.

“The billionaire tax is a tax on billionaires. Period. If you’re not a billionaire, you don’t pay the tax,” Regan said in a statement to CalMatters.

Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable, the group that paid for the ad, said the message was meant to highlight the policy implications of a wealth tax and the power Prop. 40 gives lawmakers.

“Californians deserve to understand those issues and what they could mean for taxpayers and the state’s economy,” Lapsley said in a statement.

A separate, billionaire-backed group opposed to Prop. 40 has also said the initiative “gives politicians the power to expand the tax to anyone.”

The truth lies somewhere in between.

California courts have given lawmakers real authority to amend laws created by ballot initiatives if the original text of the initiative permits it. However, that power is not unlimited and the measure includes language restricting future legislative changes, said Michael Colantuono, an attorney with expertise in state election law.

Opponents’ ads also don’t mention that Prop. 40 writes the tax into the state Constitution, not just state law, so expanding it would likely require another trip to the ballot.

Legislative authority

Legal experts agree that if Prop. 40 passes, lawmakers would be able to make certain amendments without taking it back to voters.

The state Constitution allows the Legislature to amend a ballot initiative without another vote if the initiative permits it. That’s a relatively common clause in ballot measures, and Prop. 40 includes it.

Megan Jones, a tax attorney at Holland & Knight, said proponents’ claims that the tax could never be changed are disingenuous.

“If it’s going to further the purposes, then they could,” Jones said.

For example, voters passed the Political Reform Act, which governs campaign finance and lobbying rules, in 1974 and lawmakers have amended it almost continually since.

Similarly, lawmakers have amended the Mental Health Services Act, a voter-approved 1% income tax on millionaires, 10 times since its passage in 2004. None of those amendments adjusted the tax rate. Most recently, lawmakers voted to substantially alter how the state spends mental health money and raise additional bond funds. Those changes went back to voters in 2024 as Proposition 1.

But there isn’t always a clear line for when voters need to approve changes, experts say.

“It is common for the Legislature to make amendments,” Colantuono said. “It is (also) common for there to be disputes about those amendments.”

‘Furthers the purposes of’

“Ultimately, it ends up in court,” said Chris Parker, a principal tax attorney at the firm Baker Tilly.

The California Supreme Court ruled in a 1995 case that the Legislature may amend voter-approved laws if the changes can be interpreted as furthering voters’ original goals “by any reasonable construction” — giving lawmakers broad latitude.

In 2021, the state Supreme Court held that the Legislature appropriately amended Proposition 57, a criminal justice reform measure, by barring the transferring of minors under 16 to adult court. Justices cited the 1995 case, noting that “a strong presumption of constitutionality supports the Legislature’s acts.”

Still, the language of the proposition matters.

A few years earlier, in 2019, the Third District Court of Appeal held that a legislative attempt to allow public funding of political campaigns “directly conflicts with a primary purpose” of the Political Reform Act. Lawmakers responded by passing a new bill asking voters to weigh in directly — it appears on this year’s ballot as Proposition 4.

Judges look at two things, Coluantuono said: what reasonable voters thought they were approving, and whether later legislative changes helped that goal, or got in the way.

Certain provisions of Prop. 40 would make it difficult for lawmakers to expand the tax beyond billionaires. The 1995 case established that courts may weigh the language of a ballot measure, arguments printed in the voter guide, and historical context when deciding whether change is consistent with voter intent.

Prop. 40’s purpose and intent section says the measure is meant to support healthcare and education “by raising revenue from a one-time tax on billionaire wealth” — referencing billionaire wealth three times. The voter guide arguments similarly target “approximately 200 California billionaires.”

“They could probably adjust the structure of the tax in marginal ways, but what they couldn’t do is make it a more than a one-time tax, and they probably couldn’t lower the threshold on wealth,” Coluantuono said.

Opponents contend lawmakers could interpret the purpose of the act far more broadly, and a court would agree. They point to the first listed purpose of the initiative that says the tax is meant to “protect access to high quality, equitable health care, and to support funding for kindergarten through grade fourteen public education and food assistance programs.” Opponents also say the proposal gives the Legislature the authority to change all parts of the initiative, including the constitutional provisions.

“Prop 40’s findings and statement of purpose and intent were carefully crafted to ensure that

extending the tax to non-billionaires would be consistent with the measure,” said Kurt Oneto, a lawyer for the No on 40 campaign, in a statement.

Experts said the question would likely come down to how a court read the act’s purposes.

A separate concern: how do you prove wealth? 

Should Prop. 40 pass, it would create an entirely new tax structure in California — one that assigns a value to very wealthy people’s investments, public and private businesses, as well as personal property such as art or car collections.

Valuing something like a tech startup that hasn’t produced a product or gone public could prove especially difficult, Parker said.

“The excise tax that’s being proposed here is on potential,” he said. “The question then is, if we open the door to taxing potential, when does that stop?”

Lawmakers have periodically tried to pass wealth taxes, but the bills quickly stalled. This marks the first time voters will directly decide on one, making Prop. 40 a crucial test of how much appetite Californians have for his kind of tax structure. Jones said the bigger worry isn’t the tax itself, but other taxes that could follow.

“It’s a slippery slope,” she said.

Coluantuono said it would still be politically risky for lawmakers to try to implement a wealth tax on everyday Californians, but history shows temporary taxes have more than once become permanent.

“When we get a revenue stream in the government and we start spending it on services that people value… there’s tremendous political pressure to prevent the sunset,” he said.

Supported by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), which works to ensure that people have access to the care they need, when they need it, at a price they can afford. Visit www.chcf.org to learn more.

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and her challenger, City Councilmember Nithya Raman, appeared at a South L.A. forum Saturday, where they agreed on some aspects of the city’s approach to reducing homelessness, but offered different ideas on addressing housing costs.

The two appeared separately in conversations with Brenda Verano of CALO News at A Place Called Home, a youth services community organization.

Bass went first, saying she grew up just 20 blocks south of the venue.

“South L.A. has been a big part of my life and what I have done,” said Bass, who in 1991 helped start Community Coalition, which fights for racial and economic justice in that part of the city.

Each candidate was asked how they would build trust in City Hall among Black and Latino residents in South L.A.

“Black and brown poor folks the most have been central in my administration and will continue to be so,” Bass said. “But to me, representation is not just about faces in a room. It's about collaborating on everything you're doing.”

Raman said the establishment “has taken the people of Los Angeles for granted.”

“I’m running for mayor because I don’t want to ignore any part of this city,” she said. “I want to make sure we are people who know these communities not just in the mayor's office but across the many commissions, across the many departments that are designed to oversee these neighborhoods.”

How the candidates would work with LAPD 

Both vowed to expand pilot programs where unarmed social workers respond to certain non-emergency 911 calls instead of the police department.

“Law enforcement should not be dealing with homelessness and substance abuse and mental health,” Bass said. “Those are public health issues.”

But Bass said it's doubtful the police department’s budget will be cut before the 2028 Olympics. The mayor in the past has expressed support for growing the number of police officers.

Raman has said the department is about the right size. She expressed concern about the police department’s cooperation with ICE during recent federal immigration raids.

Raman also criticized the department for its crowd control tactics during protests around ICE facilities. Police used tear gas and rubber bullets against some protestors.

“This mayor did not speak out against those actions by LAPD, appointed a chief who has not met this moment, who said he would not enforce laws put in by the state to protect us,” Raman said.

Chief Jim McDonnell has previously said his department would not enforce California's state law banning federal immigration and law enforcement agents from wearing masks on duty. A federal appeals court in February blocked enforcement of the law.

Bass said if the judicial ban is lifted, she would order McDonnell to enforce the state law. The mayor also defended the department’s use of police officers for crowd control during ICE operations.

“If there is a crowd around an arrest, then LAPD is involved because we don’t want to have the federal government doing that,” she said.

Both say city should exit troubled homelessness agency

On the city’s response to homelessness, Bass called the current system “completely disfunctional” and called for a new system under the control of the city.

Currently, the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority oversees the city’s delivery of homeless services. Numerous audits have found poor accounting of taxpayer money at the agency — which spent nearly $830 million in public funds last fiscal year.

The county has already pulled its funding from the agency in favor of standing up a new county-run Department of Homeless Services and Housing.

Bass said unhoused people are not getting enough care once they leave the streets.

“It is insufficient. They are not taken care of in terms of their health, education, etc. A new system would enable us to do that,” Bass said.

Raman has said she also supports leaving LAHSA and investing in a new homelessness bureau. She noted that street homelessness fell in her council district while numbers across the city went up, according to this year’s homeless count.

“In the past few years, this mayor has refused to audit our homelessness response,” Raman said. “I am very committed to doing that, and I'll request that audit on day one.”

Sharp divides on housing development, renter protections

On housing, Raman criticized the mayor’s opposition to building more densely in residential neighborhoods near transit centers. She said the result has been more building in the city’s poorer council districts, including the South L.A. district that hosted Saturday’s forum.

“Wealthier neighborhoods, less diverse neighborhoods, whiter neighborhoods have actually pushed back on affordable housing, on greater density,” Raman said.

More of the city, said Raman, should bear the burden of greater density.

“We need to build more housing in Los Angeles, but we need to build it across every single neighborhood,” Raman added.

Bass has said density doesn’t belong in some neighborhoods. She opposed a state law, SB 79, that will force cities to allow apartment buildings up to nine stories tall near rail transit stations.

Bass said her administration has fast-tracked new income-restricted housing. But she argued that certain development restrictions are necessary to prevent gentrification.

“We need housing, but we cannot displace Black and Brown people,” Bass said. “If you have housing that is just built anywhere and everywhere, they're coming for us.”

Raman also criticized Bass’ move to temporarily lift restrictions on short-term rentals in preparation for an influx of visitors during the 2028 Olympics.

“I want to make sure that this mayor’s push for deregulating short-term rental during this time, in ways that are harmful to renters, don’t go through,” Raman said. She said tenants could be displaced as landlords turn long-term rentals into short-term accommodations.

Airbnb and business groups back the proposal, saying it will fill a visitor lodging gap for the Olympics and that it would generate significant municipal revenue. Airbnb has put more than $4 million toward backing Bass and three other city candidates, according to the latest campaign finance reports.