SHOWTIME today announced that the new documentary feature THRILLER 40 will make its debut on streaming and on demand for Paramount+ subscribers with the Paramount+ with SHOWTIME plan on Saturday, December 2, and premiere that day at 8 p.m. ET/PT on SHOWTIME. The feature will also make its international debut on December 2 on Paramount+ in the UK, Australia, Canada, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Latin America and South Korea and on MTV internationally, excluding China and Japan.
Forty years after the release of Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” – the best-selling album of all time worldwide – Director Nelson George takes fans back in time to experience the making of the record-breaking album and the release of the accompanying short films that forever redefined the music video format. Featuring never-before-seen footage and exclusive interviews, THRILLER 40 chronicles the creation of a pre-internet global phenomenon unlike anything before it or since. “Thriller” launched Michael Jackson into mega-stardom and to this day continues to influence all aspects of culture and entertainment, including the worlds of music, dance and fashion. Music and entertainment luminaries including Usher, Mary J. Blige, Will.I.Am, Mark Ronson, Misty Copeland, Maxwell and John Landis are featured in the documentary.
THRILLER 40 is produced by Optimum Productions and Company Name. Colin Hanks, Sean Stuart, John Branca and John McClain serve as producers.
Today, Disney+ released the trailer for the original family holiday comedy “Dashing Through the Snow,” which will debut on November 17, 2023, exclusively on Disney+. A hilarious and touching story about a social worker for the Atlanta police department and the Christmas Eve journey that helps him to remember the joy and magic of the yuletide season, the film stars Lil Rel Howery and Chris “Ludacris” Bridges.
Eddie Garrick (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) is a good-hearted man who has turned his back on Christmas due to a traumatic childhood experience. At the request of his wife Allison Garrick (Teyonah Parris), from whom he is separated, Eddie takes his 9-year-old daughter Charlotte (Madison Skye Validum) out with him on Christmas Eve, where they meet a mysterious man in a red suit named Nick (Lil Rel Howery). Eddie, who is a social worker, thinks the man is delusional and needs professional help, but when he evokes the wrath of a local politician (Oscar Nuñez), he and his daughter are taken on a magical adventure that just might restore his faith in Christmas.
“Dashing through the Snow,” which is directed by Tim Story and written by Scott Rosenberg, is produced by John Jacobs and Will Packer, with Tim Story, Johanna Byer, Ross Fanger, and Zac Unterman serving as executive producers. The film also stars Teyonah Parris, Madison Skye Validum, Oscar Nuñez, Ravi V. Patel, Mary Lynn Rajskub, Gina Brillon, Sebastian Sozzi, Kevin Connolly, and Zulay Henao.
“Dashing Through the Snow” will stream November 17, 2023, exclusively on Disney+.
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Comedian, writer, and actor Zainab Johnson is known for telling stories about dating, being a Black Muslim in America, and her very big family.
“You know in a house with 15 people, a journal ain’t safe,” she jokes in her new standup special Hijabs Off on Prime Video, “They were so disrespectful. They read my journal, made notes, corrected my grammar… Like, ‘You’ve been talking about him for two years. Let it go.'”
Johnson is also returning as a cast member in the third season of the sci-fi comedy Upload.
For someone so funny, off-stage Johnson can be pretty serious. Raised by a stay-at-home mother and a father who worked for New York City’s transit authority and then managed buildings, she says writing jokes was not her first career choice.
“I studied math and education. I thought I would be a teacher in another life. Maybe I would have been a lawyer. I’m an amazing debater,” she tells NPR, “but the first time I did standup comedy, it felt very different than anything I had ever done. It felt like this was already a part of me.”
Like so many aspiring comics, Zainab began her career doing open mics several nights a week. In her new special, she explains that open mics aren’t like regular comedy clubs. Audiences, she says “were there to smoke hookah,” not watch a rookie try to hone her jokes.
Her first big break came when her friend and fellow comedian Wil Sylvince urged her to drive from LA to Sacramento to try and convince Shawn and Marlon Wayans to be part of one of their shows, resulting her first, paid standup set.
Another big break came in 2014 when Wanda Sykes and her producing partner Page Hurwitz invited Johnson to compete in the NBC-TV series Last Comic Standing.
“There’s nobody like her in standup,” says Hurwitz who recalled that, at the time, Johnson was bald, which you also “don’t see very often with women in comedy.”
Johnson has mined her bald period for standup material. “Women were like, ‘Wow you must feel so free, so spiritually lifted.’ I was like, ‘It was Tuesday. I didn’t feel like doing my hair. So I shaved it off,'” she says in one.
Hurwitz says Johnson knows how to hit “the sweet spot” of comedy.
“She can be silly and absurd, but she can also just give you a really good gut punch with a line that’s so poignant and substantive,” she says.
That mix of silly and serious seems to come naturally for Johnson. But, she says, her family didn’t always think so.
“I was talking to my mom a couple of weeks ago and I was like, ‘Was I funny as a kid? And she was like, ‘No,'” Johnson laughs. The first time one of her younger brothers watched her standup, he confessed he was terrified she would bomb, “‘Because I don’t ever remember you being funny,'” Johnson recalls him telling her.
Cat’s out of the bag now. Johnson is a regular on the comedy club circuit. In addition to her recurring role on the Prime Video series Upload, she’s appeared on Ramy, A Black Lady Sketch Show, and the kids’ series Tab Time.
In Hijabs Off Johnson spins some not-so-funny topics into laugh-out-loud anecdotes, including a traumatic personal experience from her childhood.
Without giving too much away, Johnson found herself, alone, in a dangerous situation when she was seven years old. The comic relief comes when she tells the audience she escaped, running down “25 flights of concrete steps and didn’t fall once.” She goes on to say she has trouble watching horror movies because, “Every time the girl fell I was like ‘Well that don’t need to happen. My 7-year-old legs made it. You’re a cheerleader, right? You got this.'”
For Zainab Johnson, that’s part of the power of comedy, to allow people to both process and bring levity to painful experiences.
As a Black Muslim, she also hopes her personal stories help non-Muslims see how much they all have in common.
“To walk into a room and try and make a body of strangers laugh and they all come from very different places and walks of life… That’s a very difficult thing, but it is also very rewarding when you do it.”
Johnson says her next project is developing a TV show based on her life growing up in Harlem with her parents and 12 brothers and sisters.
By Elizabeth Blair/NPR
Sheryl Lee Ralph (Abbott Elementary), Timothy V. Murphy (Appaloosa), and Bruce Greenwood (The Fall of the House of Usher) have boarded The Fabulous Four, a new comedy from Bleecker Street, which has entered production in Georgia under an Interim Agreement from SAG-AFTRA.
The actors join an ensemble that also includes Susan Sarandon, Bette Midler, and Megan Mullally, as previously announced. Ralph takes over the role of Sissy Spacek, who was attached as of last fall but was forced to drop out due to scheduling conflicts. Bleecker Street nabbed North American rights to the pic last October and will release the film in U.S. theaters in 2024. UTA Independent Film Group and CAA Media Finance arranged the financing and brokered the deal for U.S. rights, with Sierra/Affinity repping international sales.
Written and directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, the Cannes prize-winner best known for her Kate Winslet pic The Dressmaker, the film follows three life-long friends (Sarandon, Mullally, and Ralph) who travel to Key West, Florida to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding of their college girlfriend Marilyn (Midler). Once there, sisterhoods are rekindled, the past rises up again in all its glory, and there are enough sparks, drinks and romance to change all their lives in ways they never expected.
Richard Barton Lewis’ Southpaw Entertainment is producing alongside Lauren Hantz of Hantz Motion Pictures.
An icon of stage and screen, Ralph has won an Emmy and numerous other accolades for her portrayal of kindergarten teacher Barbara Howard on Abbott Elementary, the ABC mockumentary that has emerged as one the most popular scripted series on linear. The show, created by and starring Quinta Brunson, was renewed for a third season in January but only recently returned to the writers’ room, following the conclusion of the WGA strike. Otherwise perhaps best known for her Tony-nominated turn as Deena Jones in Broadway’s Dreamgirls, Ralph has also been seen in Mistress with Robert de Niro, To Sleep with Anger with Danny Glover, The Distinguished Gentlemen with Eddie Murphy, and Sister Act 2 with Whoopi Goldberg, along with such series as Moesha and Ray Donovan.
Most recently recurring on Law & Order: Organized Crime and ABC’s The Company You Keep, Murphy previously reprised his role in Uni’s comedy MacGruber on the same-name Peacock series. Other recent credits for the actor on the TV side include S.W.A.T., Snowpiercer, Westworld, and True Detective, to name just a few. Additional feature credits include In Full Bloom, The Lone Ranger, and National Treasure: Book of Secrets.
Greenwood puts in a stellar turn as Fortunato Pharmaceuticals CEO Roderick Usher in Netflix’s Edgar Allen Poe-inspired miniseries The Fall of the House of Usher from Mike Flanagan, which bowed on the platform earlier this month. He also recently starred in the Fox medical drama The Resident, which ran for six seasons, and will soon appear in fantasy pic The Invisibles with Tim Blake Nelson and Gretchen Mol, among other projects.
At this year’s Toronto Film Festival, Bleecker Street nabbed U.S. rights to James Hawes’ One Life, starring Anthony Hopkins, and the starry British comedy Fackham Hall, which goes into production next year. The company also locked down UK rights, alongside Elysian Film Group and Anonymous Content, to Hayao Miyazaki’s The Boy and the Heron. Upcoming releases include the Meg Ryan-helmed rom-com What Happens Later, coming to theaters November 3, which she leads with David Duchovny, and Sara Bareilles and Jessie Nelson’s Waitress: The Musical, out December 7 with Fathom Events.
Ralph is represented by Innovative Artists, Neon Kite, and Sutton, Barth & Vennari; Murphy by Buchwald; and Greenwood by Gersh and Binder & Associates.
Source: Deadline
Wanda Sykes will embark on her “Please & Thank You” comedy tour in 2024, the veteran stand-up comedian’s first major tour in six years.
The first 29 dates of the tour will begin on March 1 in Concord, N.H., and carry through June 15 in Kansas City, Mo., with more dates to be added into the fall. Artist presales will start on Oct. 26 at 10 a.m. local time, with tickets available to the general public on Oct. 27 at the same time, all on Sykes’ website.
Sykes hasn’t toured since the COVID-19 pandemic, but she did appear occasionally in clubs and venues post-2020 to hone material for her most recent Netflix special, “I’m an Entertainer,” which debuted in May. That special — which was nominated for Emmys for best variety, music, or comedy special and best writing for a variety, music, or comedy special — focused on some of the most hot-button topics of the pandemic era, like the Jan. 6 insurrection, the importance of trans rights, and the murder of Black Americans like George Floyd and Elijah McClain.
The dates for Sykes’s new tour are below.
Fri., March 1, 2024 — Chubb Theatre at Capitol Center for the Arts — Concord, NH
Sat., March 2, 2024 — Tarrytown Music Hall — Tarrytown, NY
Sun., March 3, 2024 — The VETS — Providence, RI
Fri., March 15, 2024 — Chrysler Hall — Norfolk, VA
Sat., March 16, 2024 — Dominion Energy Center — Richmond, VA
Sun., March 17, 2024 — Crown Theatre — Fayetteville, NC
Sat., April 6, 2024 — Hawaii Theatre Center — Honolulu, HI
Fri., April 12, 2024 — Kodak Center Main Theater — Rochester, NY
Sat., April 13, 2024 — Ulster Performing Arts Center — Kingston, NY
Sat., April 20, 2024 — Warner Theatre — Washington, DC
Sun., April 21, 2024 — Count Basie Center for the Arts — Red Bank, NJ
Fri., May 3, 2024 — Silver Legacy Resort Casino — Reno, NV
Sat., May 4, 2024 — Emerald Queen Casino & Hotel — Tacoma, WA
Sun., May 5, 2024 — Atwood Concert Hall — Anchorage, AK
Thurs., May 9, 2024 — Ovens Auditorium — Charlotte, NC
Fri., May 10, 2024 — Atlanta Symphony Hall — Atlanta, GA
Thurs., May 16, 2024 — Clowes Memorial Hall — Indianapolis, IN
Fri., May 17, 2024 — The Fillmore Detroit — Detroit, MI
Sat., May 18, 2024 — The Chicago Theatre — Chicago, IL
Fri., May 31, 2024 — Jackson Hall (UC Davis) — Davis, CA
Sat., June 1, 2024 — Paramount Theatre — Denver, CO
Sun., June 2, 2024 — Fox Tucson Theatre — Tucson, AZ
Thurs., June 6, 2024 — McCallum Theatre — Palm Desert, CA
Fri., June 7, 2024 — Luther Burbank Center for the Arts — Santa Rosa, CA
Sat., June 8, 2024 — The Masonic — San Francisco, CA
Sun., June 9, 2024 — Sycuan Casino Resort — El Cajon, CA
Thurs., June 13, 2024 — Lexington Opera House — Lexington, KY
Fri., June 14, 2024 — Stifel Theatre — St. Louis, MO
Sat., June 15, 2024 — Music Hall Kansas City — Kansas City, MO
Nick Cannon is set to introduce new talent discovered during his Future Superstars Tour 2023. VH1 and Cannon’s Ncredible Entertainment have teamed on Nick Cannon Presents: Future Superstars, a new docuseries slated to premiere next month on VH1.
Presented and hosted by Cannon, the docuseries takes viewers on a coast-to-coast journey during the 2023 tour, showcasing the talents of nine emerging artists: Big Boss Vette, DW Flame, Hitman Holla, JD McCrary, Jilly, Klondike Blonde, Pop Money, Symba, and Trae Two Three. Described as artists who are on the cusp of making their mark in the music industry, each half-hour episode delves into their unique musical gifts and personal journeys. Cannon will interview emerging stars while offering insightful mentorship as they strive to become the industry’s next big sensations. The series wraps with a finale that looks back at the artists’ progression throughout the season. Nick Cannon Presents: Future Superstars premieres with back-to-back episodes on VH1 on Tuesday, November 21 starting at 9 PM ET/PT.
“VH1 has a legacy of celebrating the magic of music and the brilliance of artists, from established icons to rising stars,” said Tiffany Lea Williams, Executive Vice President, of Unscripted Programming and Development of BET Media Group. “Now, with Nick Cannon Presents: Future Superstars, we’re about to add a thrilling new chapter to that tradition and introduce you to a new wave of musical talent. We’re proud to collaborate with Nick Cannon and Ncredible Entertainment again, and look forward to bringing viewers an engaging and entertaining docuseries highlighting these future superstars.”
“I have created a platform for the next generation of superstars,” said Cannon. “Within this docuseries, you go on a journey with each artist as they are given the superstar starter kit with everything from artist development, publicity, touring, and mentorship to succeed in the competitive music industry. You get to see the raw behind-the-scenes footage of what it takes to be a star. I am excited to have VH1 as a partner because they have always been one of the curators of the culture.”
Nick Cannon Presents: Future Superstars is executive produced by Cannon, Benjamin Sumpter, and Tia Wong Katoa for Ncredible Entertainment. Tiffany Lea Williams, Angela Aguilera, and Ia A. Robinson will serve as executive producers for BET Media Group.
Cannon and Ncredible Entertainment are represented by Michael Goldman, CAA, and Del Shaw Moonves Tanaka Finkelstein Lezcano Bobb & Dang.
Source: Deadline
NEXT for AUTISM, a nonprofit dedicated to building national programs that enhance the lives of autistic adults, will welcome a star-studded lineup to the return of its popular live comedy event Night of Too Many Stars.
The show, which will take place on Dec. 11 at the Beacon Theatre in New York City, will feature performers including Rachel Bloom, Stephen Colbert, Ron Funches, James Austin Johnson, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Amy Schumer, Jon Stewart and the cast of How to Dance in Ohio. The event will also include a live auction, as NEXT celebrates its 20th anniversary; the organization has funded more than 350 projects at 145 organizations across the United States and impacted more than 100,000 autistic individuals.
The Night of Too Many Stars was created by longtime SNL and Conan writer-producer Robert Smigel and his wife Michelle Smigel, who struggled to find effective education for their autistic son Daniel. The Smigels’ extended comedy family has been supporting this event over the past two decades and has raised over $30 million to support programs that enhance the lives of autistic individuals, particularly in the areas of education, home, work, social, health, and well-being. Past event performers include Steve Carell, George Clooney, Billy Crystal, Jimmy Fallon, Tina Fey, Tracy Morgan, John Oliver, Katy Perry, Amy Poehler, Seth Rogen, Paul Rudd, Maya Rudolph, Jerry Seinfeld, Sarah Silverman and Ben Stiller.
The event committee includes Michal Shtender and Michael Auerbach, Tanja and James Dixon, Dee, and Tommy Hilfiger, Dr. Jen Clark and Andy Korbak, Bellanca Smigel Rutter and Mitch Rutter, Jackie and Adam Sandler, Rena and David Schwartzbaum, Laura and Harry Slatkin, Lucia Smigel, Michelle and Robert Smigel, Tracey and Jon Stewart, and Christopher “CJ” Wallace.
Tickets to the event start at $134.55 and will be available to the general public on Friday via Ticketmaster and on Saturday at the Madison Square Garden, Radio City Music Hall, and Beacon Theatre box offices.
Source; The Hollywood Reporter
Reptile, the debut film by Grant Singer (who’s known for directing music videos), has become Netflix’s most streamed film. This accomplishment can only be for the amazing performance of the star-studded cast including Justin Timberlake, Alicia Silverstone, Domenick Lombardozzi, and the captivating performance of lead star Benicio Del Toro. Otherwise, the film is “ehh” at best.
A quick synopsis: Will Grady (Justin Timberlake) is a Scarborough real estate mogul dating a realtor agent named Summer Elswick (Matilda Lutz). One day, Grady finds Elswick brutally murdered in one of the homes they were showing. Detective Tom Nichols (Del Toro) and his partner Dan Cleary (Ato Essendoh) take the case and then it begins. Nichols suspects Grady at the beginning and the rest of the movie is just false leads and a whole lot of unnecessary twists and turns just to find out it is in fact Grady. Of course, part of these twists and turns include learning of Summer’s secrets, corrupt police officers and inside jobs (surprise, surprise). Sex, drugs, and money in that order. Honestly, the movie was predictable the whole way through. You could predict that Grady was the killer at the beginning, his accomplices and motive in the middle, and the ending at least 30 minutes before it ended.
However, despite Reptile’s cliché story and boring plot, Del Toro’s gripping portrayal of Detective Nichols makes Reptile worth the watch if you want to see acting excellence. He carried the movie the entire way through. The supporting stars in the movie also did an amazing job portraying characters that would’ve been negligible otherwise. Cinematographer Michael Gioulakis (who has worked with notable directors such as Jordan Peele and M. Night Shyamalan) also deserves praise for his work in Reptile. It can only be for these reasons that Reptile climbed to the top of Netflix’s most streamed movies in my opinion. I would recommend at least trying to watch it to see for yourself.
By: McKenna Fuller mckennajefuller@gmail.com
Q-Tip, the legendary rapper, producer, singer, and lyricist, will be adding his hip-hop know-how to the Broadway-bound Ali, a musical about Muhammad Ali’s life in and out of the boxing ring.
The acclaimed rhymer has been signed on by Ali lead producer Richard Willis as music producer, co-lyricist, and cast album producer, and will work alongside director and book writer Clint Dyer (Get Up, Stand Up! The Bob Marley Musical, Othello), deputy artistic director of UK’s National Theatre, and Teddy Abrams, the show’s composer.
Abrams is music director of the Louisville Orchestra, based in the city where the heavyweight champion and a titan of the 20th century was born.
Back in 2017, Abrams wrote multimedia opera-rap-oratorio mashup The Greatest: Muhammad Ali, which premiered with the Louisville Orchestra at the Kentucky Center in Louisville.
That production got Abrams, and others, thinking that there should be a full-scale Broadway musical about the pivotal historical figure who transcended his sporting achievements.
Celebrated saxophonist Casey Benjamin has also been brought into the show’s music department as associate music producer. Benjamin, who once played saxes and vocoder for the Robert Glasper Experiment quartet, has deep jazz roots; he studied piano aged 6, and soon after got his fingers moving on the saxophone. His rhythmic punch can be heard on countless recordings including numbers with Mos Def and Mary J Blige.
Sean Mayes (MJ, Hadestown) has joined Ali as music supervisor. Mayes acted as music director, orchestrator and arranger for An Evening With Andre De Shields with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, and has performed musical duties for shows and orchestras in his homeland Canada.
For Q-Tip and Benjamin, both Grammy winners, it’s a reunion of sorts having collaborated before; they’re also linked by the fact that they’re both born and bred in Queens.
In a statement penned exclusively for this column, Q-Tip wrote: “I am very excited to be collaborating with Teddy, Clint, Casey and Sean in telling The Greatest’s story on stage. Muhammad Ali has always been a hero to me!”
Willis, the producer, was just as elated when he broke the news to me that Q-Tip, Benjamin and Mayes would be ringside in Ali‘s creative corner. The wide smile on his face said it all when we grabbed a snack at the Union Club in Soho.
Willis told me that the show will combine spoken word, verse, classical music and poetry, rap and hip-hop. “We want to take the traditional musical theater structure that works and then tip it on its ear a little bit,” he said.
He added, “Q-Tip produces songs and albums for a massive audience so he knows how to do that thing that’s slightly different than what normal musical theater is. So we tip it, and make it original and fresh and new and hummable.
“All that energy in the right direction is the job, right?”
When I caught up with Dyer late Tuesday, he cried, “We’re doing it!”
Calming down a tad, he continued, “We’ve all been in the room together, we’re working, we’re not wasting any time.”
Praising the rap artist, he stated, “Q-Tip has proven himself as one of the greatest hip-hop artists of his generation and beyond. Having his talents onboard will give this musical every possibility to honor Ali’s greatness. … I could not be happier with this appointment.”
“We’ll use his hip-hop beats, and his talents will be used in other areas as well,” Dyer enthused. “This show’s covering a lot of areas of music and we’ll exhaust all of Q-Tip’s knowledge. You’ve got to remember that Q-Tip’s into all kinds of music, not just jazz and hip-hop. For instance, his next album is all rock ‘n’ roll, so hold on. Let’s see what he comes up with for Ali!”
“I tell you,” Dyer exclaimed, “it’s thrilling because what he and Teddy and Benjamin and Sean are doing is gonna lift this show up to where we want it to be.”
Dyer has just opened the final chapter in the Death of England plays written by him and Roy Williams. The latest installment, Death of England: Closing Time starring Sharon Duncan-Brewster (Dune) and Hayley Squires (I, Daniel Blake), runs at the National Theatre’s Dorfman Theatre until November 11.
Q-Tip has been at the forefront of jazz-funk infused Afrocentric beats and rhythms since the late 1980s, playing a key role in the rise of jazz rap. The co-founder and former frontman for progressive rap group A Tribe Called Quest — five of their six albums certified gold and platinum — has produced and influenced the musical output of J Dilla, Pharrell Williams, Janet Jackson, Mary J. Blige, Kendrick Lamar and many others.
Ali’s moving fast now following extensive private workshops in Louisville over the summer. A further workshop has been penciled in for December, with more planned for next spring.
Ali will have its world premiere in Louisville in fall 2024.
No date has been set, but Ali is likely to open on Broadway in 2025.
The Ali creative team also includes: choreography/fight choreography by Rich + Tone Talauega (MJ the Musical), set design by Anna Fleischle (Hangmen, Once Upon a One More Time, Time Traveller’s Wife), costume design by Emilio Sosa (Sweeney Todd, Trouble In Mind, The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess), lighting design by Jen Schriever (A Strange Loop, 1776), video/projections/media design by Tal Yarden (Network, Sunday in the Park with George) and Gino Ricardo Green (Get Up, Stand Up!, Othello), sound effects design by Ben Grant (Othello, Get Up, Stand Up!). The associate director is Asmeret Ghebremichael (The Notebook, Dreamgirls); creative dramaturge is Fred Carl, associate arts professor in the NYU Tisch Graduate School for Musical Theatre Writing; special boxing consultant and fight coordinator is Michael “Silk” Olajide Jr.; and casting director is Jim Carnahan.
Source: Deadline
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Richard Roundtree, the trailblazing actor who starred as the ultra-smooth private detective in several “Shaft” films beginning in the early 1970s, has died. He was 81.
Roundtree’s longtime manager, Patrick McMinn, said the actor had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died at his home in Los Angeles on Tuesday. He was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1993 and underwent a double mastectomy.
“Richard’s work and career served as a turning point for African American leading men,” McMinn said. “The impact he had on the industry cannot be overstated.”
Roundtree, who was born in New Rochelle, New York, was considered as the first Black action hero and became one of the leading actors in the blaxploitation genre through his New York street-smart John Shaft character in the Gordon Parks-directed film in 1971. At age 28, it was Roundtree’s first feature film appearance after starting his career as a model.
Roundtree’s “Shaft” was part of a change in how Black movies were viewed in Hollywood, which failed to consider Black actors – especially for leading roles — in projects at the time. The blaxploitation films were primarily aimed at the African-American audiences.
In the film, his character navigated the world of thugs. He regularly whipped out popular one-liners like “It’s my duty to please that booty.”
“What we were doing was a good, old Saturday afternoon shoot ’em up,” Roundtree said in a 2000 interview with The Associated Press.
Isaac Hayes’ “Shaft” theme song — which included the line “You a bad mother— (Shut your mouth)” — helped insinuate the original movie into the pop-cult consciousness. The singer, who died in 2008, said the song was “like the ‘shot heard round the world.” His single won an Academy Award for best song in 1971 and two Grammys the following year.
After the film’s success, Roundtree returned in sequels “Shaft’s Big Score” in 1972 and “Shaft in Africa” in 1973. That same year, he played the savvy detective once again on the CBS television series “Shaft,” which lasted only seven episodes.
Roundtree reprised his role in the 2000 “Shaft” film, a revival that starred Samuel L. Jackson. He appeared as Jackson’s uncle in the big-budget film that was aimed at the general audience. Both appeared again in the same roles in the 2019 film starring Jessie T. Usher.
Jackson called Roundtree the “prototype” and the “best to ever do it” in a social media post.
“SHAFT, as we know it is & will always be his Creation,” he said of Roundtree. “His passing leaves a deep hole not only in my heart, but I’m sure a lotta y’all’s, too.”
Through his 50-plus year career, Roundtree appeared in a number of other notable films including “Earthquake,” “Man Friday” with Peter O’Toole, “Roots,” “Maniac Cop” “Se7en” and “What Men Want” starring Taraji P. Henson. He also made his mark with television roles on “Magnum P.I.,” “The Love Boat,” “Being Mary Jane” and “The Love Boat.”
In 1995, Roundtree received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the MTV Movie & TV Awards.
Source: Associated Press