THE COMMANDING PRESENCE (REMEMBERING YAPHET KOTTO)

Yaphet Kotto was one of those actors who had a huge presence onscreen - even in a supporting role.

Six foot four and 240 pounds in his heyday, he played more than his fair share of police and FBI agent roles.

And while he brought a physicality to his performances, he was also a very subtle, smart and generous actor who could bring out the best in those he shared the screen with.

In fact, Kotto was so impressive, it's hard to imagine the films and TV shows he graced ever being as good without him.

'Alien' would almost certainly be weaker without him as Parker.

As FBI Special Agent Alonzo Mosley in Martin Brest's 'Midnight Run,' he helped draw out Robert de Niro's best and possibly only successful comedy performance.

His signature small screen role as Lieutenant Al Giardello was one of the anchor characters in NBC's Barry Levinson produced police procedural 'Homicide: Life On The Streets'.

Even though Kotto effectively retired from our screens from 2008, any time a film or TV show featuring him popped up on our screens, it was a reminder of his colossal presence and sharp intelligence.

Born in New York in 1939, his father was a businessman who had emigrated to the US from the Cameroon in the 1920s and his mother was a nurse and US Army officer of Panamanian and West Indian extraction.

His father was Jewish and spoke Hebrew.

His mother was a convert to the faith and according to his autobiography 'Royalty,' he discovered when delving into his roots that his father had regal lineage -  his great-grandfather King Alexander Bell ruled the Douala region of Cameroon in the late 19th century and was also a practicing Jew.

The actor said research had revealed his paternal family originated from Israel and migrated to Egypt and then Cameroon, and had been African Jews for many generations. 

Kotto also claimed he was a descendant of Queen Victoria - although this was disputed by Buckingham Palace.

Being raised African American and Jewish in New York, Kotto recalled how he was often picked on by other children - both white and black.

."It was rough coming up," he said. 

"And then going to shul, putting a yarmulke on, having to face people who were primarily Baptists in the Bronx meant that on Fridays, I was in some heavy fistfights."

Luckily for everyone, Kotto found an outlet through acting and at the age of 16 he studied at the Actor's Mobile Theater Studio.

Three years later, he made his professional debut in a production of 'Othello' and started to land roles on Broadway, appearing in Howard Sackler's Tony award winning 'The Great White Hope' with James Earl Jones - an acclaimed play about racism based on the experiences of the Jim Crow era boxer, Jack Johnson who was the first African American heavyweight champion of the world.

In 1963, he got his first taste of a film set as an extra on the Robert Aldrich Western '4 for Texas' which starred Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Anita Ekberg, Ursula Andress, Charles Bronson and the Three Stooges.

There was a more substantial role in Michael Roemer's neo-realist independent drama 'Nothing But A Man' about a railroad worker battling racial prejudice in Birmingham, Alabama with Ivan Dixon, Abbey Lincoln and Julius Harris.

In 1967, Kotto made the first of three guest appearances in the popular ABC Western series 'The Big Valley,' with Barbara Stanwyck, Lee Majors and Linda Evans.

During the 1960s, he would appear in episodes of other popular shows like NBC's 'Bonanza,' 'The High Chaparral,' 'Daniel Boone' with Fess Parker and CBS's detective series 'Mannix' with Mike Connors and 'Hawaii Five-O' with Jack Lord.

1968 saw Kotto land a role in Norman Jewison's neo noir box office hit 'The Thomas Crown Affair' with Steve McQueen, Faye Dunaway and Jack Weston.

There would be other parts in Henry Hathaway's 1968 Western 'Five Card Stud,' with Dean Martin and Robert Mitchum, William Wyler's 1970 crime drama 'The Liberation of LB Jones' with Roscoe Lee Brown and Lee J Cobb and the 1971 EW Swackhamer comedy Western 'Man and Boy' with Bill Cosby.

Larry Cohen cast him in his debut movie, the 1972 black comedy 'Bone' in which Kotto played a stranger who walks onto a bickering white couple's property intending to rob them but ends up getting embroiled in their lives.

Also starring Joyce van Patten, Andrew Duggan and Jeannie Berlin, it remains a fascinating glimpse into the development of Clark as a controversial filmmaker.

Kotto wound up in the director's chair for his next project, 'The Limit' in which he also played a California highwayman who comes up against a motorcycle gang.

He would tell the Chicago film critic Roger Ebert the film was intended purely as a piece of entertainment after it attracted some criticism for its lack of social commentary.

There was also an eye catching role as a police Lieutenant in Barry Shear's well received, gritty New York crime drama 'Across 110th Street' with Anthony Quinn and Anthony Franciosa which featured Bobby Womack's iconic theme song later used on the soundtrack to Quentin Tarantino's 'Jackie Brown'.

That led to Kotto's role as the Caribbean dictator Dr Kanaga in Guy Hamilton's 1973 James Bond film 'Live and Let Die' with Roger Moore as 007, Jane Seymour and another iconic, Oscar nominated theme song by Paul McCartney.

Kotto was drawn to the role because of his character's interest in the occult, noting how he believes he could "control past, present and future".

The movie was a box office smash and won the Evening Standard award for Best Film despite sniffy reviews from critics who felt Moore was a poor substitute for Sean Connery as Bond and Kotto was not menacing enough as a villain.

It continues to divide Bond aficionados to this day, with Empire magazine's critic Ian Nathan championing it but the BBC's Chris Nashawaty critical of it.

The following year saw him play a violent pump in Jonathan Kaplan's Blaxploitation flick 'Truck Turner' with Isaac Hayes and Scatman Crothers which was released as a double feature with Jack Hill's Pam Grier vehicle 'Foxy Brown'.

Originally intended as a vehicle for Lee Marvin or Robert Mitchum, it boasted a soundtrack by Hayes which Tarantino plundered for his 'Kill Bill' movies and was almost remade in 2004 by Queen Latifah's production company.

He would appear in Milton Kasealas' tough 1975 NYPD drama 'Report to the Commissioner' with Michael Moriarty, Susan Blakely William Devane and a young Richard Gere, which would spawn a sequel a year later, directed by EW Swackhamer in which his mid-Manhattan detective tried to break up a drugs ring.

There was also a role in Arthur Mark's Blacksploitation movie 'Friday Foster' with Pam Grier and Eartha Kitt and the brash Cornel Wilde adventure B movie 'Shark's Treasure' in which he starred alongside the director.

Kotto played a slave in Steve Carver's Drum, a 1976 sequel to the historical drama 'Mandingo,' joining Pam Grier, Warren Oates and Ken Norton among the cast.

There was a lead part as a Chicago conman in Arthur Mark's Blacksploitation feature 'The Monkey Hustle' with Rudy Ray Moore which took a critical hammering.

He was nominated for an Emmy for his memorable portrayal of Ugandan dictator, General Idi Amin in Irvin Kershner's TV movie for NBC 'Raid on Entebbe' about the hijacking of a plane carrying Israeli citizens by Palestinians and two German sympathisers.

Also starring Peter Finch, Charles Bronson, James Woods, Jack Warden and Robert Loggia, a rival TV movie about the Israeli special forces rescue of the passengers from Uganda 'Victory at Entebbe' was rush released on ABC a month earlier.

On the back of strong reviews with Kotto receiving particular praise, the TV film got a theatrical release in Europe.

His next movie was also a hit with the critics.

Paul Schrader's 'Blue Collar' saw him act alongside Harvey Keitel and Richard Pryor as a debt ridden ex-prisoner and Michigan automobile industry factory worker who joins them in a plan to rob the contents of their trade union's safe but discover ties to organised crime.

Adored by critics, Spike Lee and Bruce Springsteen have championed the film as a "must see".

But his next project was to be arguably his most admired role as the chief engineer Parker in Ridley Scott's classic horror sci-fi 'Alien' with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm and John Hurt.

A huge critical and commercial success, Kotto didn't have to audition for the part and was fiercely proud of the film 

He was so impressed by the script that he ignored his agent's advice to accept a $2 million offer to do another film.

In an interview with the IGN website, Kotto recalled telling his agent: "I have just read the script and it's unbelievable. What if I take this (other) movie and they call you back and say 'We want him for 'Alien'?.

"He said: What? This is more money than you have ever been offered in your whole career! 

"I said: I can't do it (turning Alien down). I can't do it."

During the making of 'Alien,' Irvin Kershner offered him the role of Lando Calrissian in 'The Empire Strikes Back' but he had already committed to appearing in Stuart Rosenberg's prison drama 'Brubaker' with Robert Redford.

"I wanted to get back down to Earth," he later admitted.

"I was afraid that if I did another space film after having done 'Alien,' I would be typed.

"Once you get one of those big blockbuster hits, you better have some other big blockbuster hits to go with it too and be Harrison Ford, because if you don't … you place yourself right out of the business."

Kotto was also the original choice for 'Star Trek: The Next Generation's' Captain Jean Luc Godard but turned the role down as well.

'Brubaker,' which also featured Murray Hamilton, Jane Alexander and Morgan Freeman, was a critical and commercial hit, with Kotto playing a prisoner enlisted by Redford's warden to reform its brutal regime.

Kotto's other small screen work during the 1970s included guest roles in CBS's Western series 'Gunsmoke' with James Arness, NBC's horror anthology 'Night Gallery' and in 1977 in ABC's Emmy award winning miniseries of Alex Haley's slavery novel 'Roots.'

He joined Tom Skerritt and Patti LuPone in Lewis Teague's 1982 vigilante thriller 'Fighting Back' as the leader of an African American vigilante group but the movie was lambasted by critics and failed to make back its $9 million budget.

There was a much more effective role in Peter Hyams' 1983 thriller 'The Star Chamber' as a detective who teams up with Michael Douglas' judge to expose an underground arrangement for the assassination of criminals who beat the charges in court.

Also starring Hal Holbrook, many critics felt the film couldn't sustain its smart premise after a strong start and again it made a loss.

In 1983, he popped up in an episode of NBC's popular action adventure series 'The A Team' with George Peppard and as a platoon sergeant on the channel's short-lived military drama 'For Love and Honor' with Cliff Potts, Rachel Ticotin, Shelley Smith and Gary Grubbs which only lasted 13 episodes.

There were also guest appearances on NBC's revival of 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents' and on CBS's 'Murder, She Wrote'.

In Hal Barwood's 1985 sci-fi horror film 'Warning Sign' with Sam Waterston and Kathleen Quinlan, Kotto played an Army Major tasked with quarantining a military laboratory where there has been a virulent bacteria outbreak but the film neither thrilled the critics or enticed cinemagoers.

There was a role in HBO's first ever movie, 'The Park Is Mine' - a 'Rambo: First Blood' rip-off with Tommy Lee Jones as a tortured Vietnam War veteran and Kotto as his adversary, with a soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.

He was an Assistant DA in the CBS TV movie 'Badge of the Assassin' with James Woods, Alex Rocco, Rae Dawn Chong and Pam Grier which got decent reviews.

Richard C Sarafan directed him, Gary Busey and Seymour Cassel in the well received 1986 thriller 'Eye of the Tiger' in which he played a local deputy who teams up with Busey's Vietnam vet against a motorcycle gang.

He was a resistance fighter alongside Arnold Schwarzenegger in Paul Michael Glaser's 1987 dystopian thriller 'The Running Man' with Maria Conchita Alonso which received mixed reviews and underperformed at the box office.

The following year saw him on great form as Special Agent Alonzo Mosley in Martin Brest's excellent action comedy 'Midnight Run' with Robert de Niro, Charles Grodin, Dennis Farina, Jon Ashton, Philip Baker Hall and Joe Pantoliano which amazingly didn't cut through with cinema audiences on its release but which has grown in appreciation over the years.

In James Lemmo's 1989 terrorism action thriller 'Tripwire,' he joined David Warner, Terence Knox, Meg Foster and Viggo Mortensen.

There was a lead role in the 1990 TV movie 'After the Shock' with Jack Scalia and Rue McClanahan about an earthquake that occurred in San Francisco a year previously.

He took on a prominent role in the sixth film in 'The Nightmare On Elm Street' franchise, Rachel Talalay's 'Freddy's Dead' in 1991 with Robert Englund, Lisa Zane and a young Johnny Depp which fared well at the box office.

Mark L Lester directed him as a detective in the 1993 action film 'Extreme Justice' with Lou Diamond Phillips, Scott Glenn and Chelsea Field.

Kotto also that year had a guest role in the first season of NBC's submarine sci-fi series 'Seaquest DSV' with Roy Scheider and Stephanie Beacham.

However that year, he would land an iconic small screen role as Lieutenant Al Giardello - a half African American, half Italian police Lieutenant in a police department plunged into the epicentre of Baltimore crime.

Penned by David Simon, the NBC show with Ned Beatty, Andre Braugher, Melissa Leo, Daniel Baldwin and Jon Polito helped fill a gap left by 'Hill Street Blues' and paved the way for HBO's 'The Wire'.

And while it didn't set the ratings alight, it managed to last seven seasons - earning critical kudos for its depiction of urban crime.

Its executive producer Barry Levinson was in no doubt about the qualities Kotto brought to the show.

"Yaphet has great credibility, a simple strength, a quite passion," he observed.

The show ran until 2000, ending with a TV film called 'Homicide: The Movie' in which Giardello runs for Mayor but is shot at the start of his campaign.

There was also an appearance in a 1994 TV movie as a detective in CBS's 'The Corpse Had A Familiar Face' with Elizabeth Montgomery and Dennis Farina and a guest appearance on Michael Moore's 1994 satirical news magazine show for NBC and BBC2 'TV Nation'.

However his last outing as Giardello in 2000 was to be his final role on the small screen.

In Stuart Orme's 1994 science fiction tale 'The Puppet Masters' with Donald Sutherland, Keith David and Julie Warner which received poor reviews and failed to ignite the box office.

He joined the rapper LL Cool J in Debbie Allen's 1995 crime drama 'Out-of-Synch' and played another FBI agent in Bill Bennett's poorly received 1996 romcom 'Two If By Sea' with Sandra Bullock and Denis Leary.

Kotto's final film role came in Charles Robert Carner's feeble 2008 comedy 'Witless Protection' with Larry the Cable Guy, Joe Mantegna and Jenny McCarthy as an Alonso Mosley character.

Married three times with six children, Kotto retired to the Philippines where he passed away.

One of the best tributes to him came from the director Ava DuVernay who described him as "one of those actors who deserved more than the parts that he got."

But, boy, did he make an impression with those roles.

(Yaphet Kotto passed away at the age of 81 on March 15, 2021) 

Lokasi:

Berbagi :