*While America celebrates July 4 as the anniversary of its independence from British rule, Louis Gossett, Jr. marks the date each year as his independence from years of living in a haze of freebase cocaine, alcohol and a toxic mold that invaded his house and his body.
Gossett, 74, has detailed his rebirth, which began with a trip to rehab in 2004, as well as details of his remarkable life in a new memoir, “An Actor and a Gentleman,” which hit bookstores in May, reports Reuters.
The veteran actor has regained his health and has dedicated his life to erasing racism, which caused anger and resentment in his career and fueled a need to escape through drug use.
“Once you put it through a blender, we are one people. We are all equal, and we need one another to survive and save this planet,” he told Reuters.
The winner of the best supporting actor Oscar for 1982′s “An Officer and a Gentleman” was raised in Brooklyn, NY by working parents in a community rife with gangs, but managed to escaped a lot of violence because, Gossett said, his friends and family members looked out for him.
His innate talent for acting landed him a plum role in as tage play of “Take a Giant Step.” Gossett took classes at the Actors Studio — the famed school that at various times was home to James Dean, Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe.
Throughout the 1950s and 60s, Gossett made a good living in Broadway theater before Hollywood beckoned with fat paychecks for television work. And while those jobs were good — he won Emmys and Golden Globe trophies — Los Angeles was hard.
In his chapter, “The Bubble Burst” Gossett recounts his first trip to Hollywood in 1967, when he took a stroll off the grounds of the Beverly Hills Hotel only to find himself stopped by police who chained him to a tree for hours.
Gossett complains that on TV and in movies throughout the 1970s and 1980s, getting jobs was twice as hard and he was typically paid on a lower scale than his white co-stars. Even winning the Oscar, he said, changed nothing.
“Somewhere along the way, that charm disappeared,” Gossett said. But he is quick to add, “I needed to get experience from that, to get where I am today.”
In his book, Gossett recounts good times and bad, such as his court battle with one ex-wife who accused him of giving his children cocaine — a charge that was proven untrue. Through it all, he continued to work when jobs came his way, but by the 1990s and early 2000s, he was sick. At one point, he was told he had six months to live.
Little did Gossett know, until 2001, that much of his illness was caused by a toxic mold growing in his Malibu home. Yet, the actor does not dodge the fact that drugs and alcohol altered his life, and his inability to deal with the racism he experienced was one crack in his armor that allowed drugs in.
Gossett has now dedicated himself to mentoring young people and helping them overcome problematic issues in their own lives, as well as stamping out racism around the world.
“I also think racism is one of those addictions. It’s one of things in your system, and you have to do something everyday” to deal with it, he said
Louis Gossett, Jr. = THE MOST UNDERRATED ACTOR IN THE HISTORY OF MOTION PICTURES
Cosign smitdawg.
I TOTALLY AGREE!!!
I have wondered what happened to him over the years, have not seen too much of him since winning the much deserved Oscar for An Officer and a Gentleman one of my all time favorite movies. He is a very good actor too bad the drugs and other problems affected him but, I am glad he has overcome his demons. The young black actors and actresses can learn alot from his mentoring because some of them truly need it.
Hmmm … REHAB AT 70?!! I was wondering why he looked so terrible.
Yes, racism IS an awful, ugly thing, but let’s not blame it for everything. Let’s not use it as an excuse to do drugs. Getting hooked on and continuing to do drugs well past middle age, into the ELDERLY zone, also involves a LACK OF MATURITY.
Hollywood is what it is, and ya couldn’t have been doing all that bad, Lou, LIVING IN MALIBU LIKE YA DO!
I agree with you, smitdawg. I’ve always liked LG and had not idea of his struggles with substance abuse. I liked his role in the movie “A Gathering of Old Men” and many others. He never quite got his due.
Well many of us have to deal with racism on the day to day. It consumes some of us. I have friends in the IT industry who are highly skilled but refuse to even be considered for higher paying manager positions because they know the white guys and women will not get that backs. So they take lower paying jobs. It can be the death of many of us.
Right, Leonard. Sometimes just knowing that you are indeed qualified and you are STILL over looked b/c of your skin color is disheartening
What you’re saying is 100% true, I had an mid level IT interview last year and when the guy saw I was black, the interview never got started, he abruptly ended it even my recruiter noted it was out of racism. This is why I am building my own company, as YT only wants you to go so far and as long as you put him in charge of your future you will never excel to your peak as he will hinder you, lie on you, under pay, refuse to promote and outright fire or lay you off. I believe in having my own and that has worked very well for me. It feels good to tell YT to take his racism and underpaying jobs and shove it up his a$$.
While I may still return to Corporate to further my own financial endeavors it will “not” be permanent.
I feel LG as a man of color this is the ish we deal with all the time!
I’ve said this here before, and it bears repeating. More black actors and actresses need to be told upfront what I was told when I worked as an extra in Los Angeles. Blacks receive THREE PRECENT of the work in Hollywood. ONE PERCENT of the work goes to “Asian and other.” (Depending on their appearance, Hispanics are lumped in with whites.) That is the way it is and that is the way it’s going to STAY. It is THEIR world, not OURS. Ours is NOT the dominant culture in U.S. society. Let’s face it … If our culture WAS the dominant culture in this society, would we be hiring whites in droves?? HELL NO.
Instead of being cry babies about it and doing drugs, we need to create more, write more, and pool OUR resources so we can PRODUCE on a grand scale and provide work for all our sniveling brothers and sisters trying to gain entry into an entertainment industry where they’re not really wanted, just TOLERATED.
Three percent?? That’s a shame ’cause we’re 14 percent of the population. They won’t even go by those statistics. They should at least show some effort and try.