- Name: Yaphet Kotto
- Date of Birth: November 15, 1937
- Place of Birth: New York, New York, USA
Mini-bio:
By the age of 16, Yaphet Kotto was studying acting at the Actor's Mobile Theater Studio, and at 19, he made his professional acting debut in Othello. He also was a member of the Actors Studio in New Y...( read more)
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Yaphet Kotto mini-bio: By the age of 16, Yaphet Kotto was studying acting at the Actor's Mobile Theater Studio, and at 19, he made his professional acting debut in Othello. He also was a member of the Actors Studio in New York. Kotto got his start in acting on Broadway, where he appeared in The Great White Hope, among other productions.
His film debut was in 1963 in an uncredited role in 4 For Texas, but his first big break came in Nothing But a Man in 1964. He played a supporting role in the 1968 caper film The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. In 1973 he landed the role of the James Bond villain Mr. Big in Live and Let Die, as well as roles in Across 110th Street and Truck Turner. Kotto portrayed Idi Amin Dada in the 1977 television film Raid on Entebbe. He also starred as an auto worker alongside Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel in the 1978 critical hit Blue Collar.
The following year he played one of his best-known roles, as Parker in the popular sci-fi/horror film Alien. He followed that success with a prominent supporting role in the 1980 prison drama Brubaker, co-starring Robert Redford. In 1987, he appeared in the hit futuristic sci-fi movie The Running Man with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He co-starred with Robert De Niro in the successful 1988 comedy Midnight Run, portraying Alonzo Mosely, an FBI agent determined to bring in Jonathan Mardukas (Charles Grodin) to turn states' evidence against the Mob.
He played Lieutenant Al Giardello in the critically-acclaimed television series Homicide: Life on the Street. The Giardello character reflected Kotto's own ethnic complexity, portrayed as a widower and the product of an African-American mother and Italian American father.
He played John Austun, a confused Marine Lance Corporal, in the 1968 episode "King Of The Hill" on the first season of Hawaii 5-0. In the episode he is shipped to a hospital to take care of a headwound, has a flashback to the war and holes up in a ward, thinking everyone else is the Viet Cong. Danno is wounded and bleeding to death and McGarrett has to think of a way to stop the vet without harming the other patients in the ward.
He has written two books: Royalty, and The Second Coming of Christ, and also wrote scripts for Homicide: Life on the Street.
Kotto appeared in TV Nation in an experiment to see who would have more trouble getting a taxi - a distinguished black actor or a white felon.
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IRONMANBLASTposted 561 days ago -
