Film, soul and gangster style. Many superstars commemorate an icon of Black US cinema.
The American film community is in mourning. Actor Richard Roundtree died on Tuesday afternoon (October 24) after a short, difficult battle with pancreatic cancer. Roundtree was 81 years old.
So far, colleagues such as Samuel L. Jackson, Gabrielle Union and others have expressed condolences and paid tribute to the icon from the “blacksploitation” movement.
It was Samuel Jackson who played the fictional nephew of Detective John Shaft in a 2019 remake of the “Shaft” saga by writer-director Gordon Parks; embodied by Roundtree in 1971 (Quentin Tarantino even went so far as to cast Shaft as the grandson of his cinematic heroine, the black German-born Brunhilda von Schaft, in “The Hateful Eight”).
“Richard Roundtree, The Prototype, The Best To Ever Do It!” SHAFT as we know him is & always will be his creation!!!,” Jackson wrote in a caption to a social media post. “His passing leaves a deep hole not only in my heart, but certainly in the hearts of many of you as well.”
And further:
“Love you Brother, I see you walking down the middle of Heaven’s Main Street and Issac conducting your song. Your coat is flapping in the wind!!! Angels whisper: ‘That Cat SHAFT Is A Bad Mutha, Shutcho Mouth!!’
He makes an insider’s reference to the “Theme from Shaft” composed by Isaac Hayes; which won an Oscar at the time.
Analogous to the “Black Power” movement, the gangster film is one of the first (also commercially successful) US films with a cast in which blacks not only appear in supporting roles, but also convey an urban, “cool” attitude to life. Soul man Isaac Hayes did a similarly impressive job of scoring at the time, as did Henry Mancini, Ennio Morricone or the Briton John Barry.
Gabrielle Union, who starred alongside Roundtree in the drama series “Being Mary Jane,” said working with the blaxploitation film icon was “a dream.”
She writes on X:
“Hanging out with him and our Being Mary Jane family was always a great time with the best stories and laughs. He was ALWAYS the coolest man in the room with the BEST vibes and people would literally come running to see him. He was simply the best & we all loved him!”