Richard Roundtree, who played John Shaft in the first installment of the “Shaft” film franchise in 1971, died at the age of 81 after a battle with cancer.
Roundtree died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Los Angeles, his manager, Patrick McMinn, informed The Hollywood Reporter.
In 1993, he was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy. “Breast cancer is not gender specific,” he said four years later. “And men have this cavalier attitude about health issues. I got such positive feedback because I spoke out about it, and it’s been quite a number of years now. I’m a survivor.”
Roundtree also played the title character in Man Friday, opposite Peter O’Toole as Robinson Crusoe, an army sergeant opposite Laurence Olivier as Gen. Douglas MacArthur in the Korean War drama Inchon (1981), and Burt Reynolds’ partner in a private-eye business in City Heat (1984).
Roundtree played carriage driver Sam Bennett, who falls for Leslie Uggams’ Kizzy in the groundbreaking ABC miniseries Roots in 1977. (He claimed that George Hamilton apologized to him for years for the scene in which Hamilton’s character, a slave owner, was forced to lash Bennett.)
Roundtree previously stated that he was most happy of his work in previously Upon a Time… When We Were Colored (1996), a film about a Black Mississippi family dealing with inequity in the south. His father, a Pentecostal priest, had refused to watch any of his son’s films until this one.
Roundtree, dubbed the “first Black action hero,” became one of the faces of the 1970s blaxploitation movement when he played as the street-smart New York investigator in Gordon Parks’ Shaft (1971). Apart from a brief appearance in the 1970 comedy What Do You Say to a N*ked Lady?, it was his first appearance on the big screen.
Shaft, based on Ernest Tidyman’s 1970 novel of the same name, was originally intended to star a white actor. After discovering Roundtree, a former model, during a cattle call, Parks insisted on casting him.
“Gordon Parks is Shaft,” Roundtree told WBUR radio station in 2019. “The way he moved and talked.” He is the most refined, silky individual I have ever encountered. And being in his presence and being a part of anything with his stamp on it is beautiful to me.”
Shaft was one of only three MGM films to make a profit in 1971.
“Shaft is not a great film, but it’s very entertaining,” noted Vincent Canby in his New York Times review. “Shaft is the type of guy who can drink five fingers of scotch without gagging or tearing up.” He travels around Whitey’s environment with grace and elegance, without losing his independence or understanding of where his life is truly at.
“When a friend — a white homosexual bartender — gives him a rather hopeful caress, Shaft is not threatened, but rather amused.” He doesn’t have any identity issues, so he can afford to be cheery in situations that would throw a weaker hero into the kind of personality crisis that generally ends in a shooting, or at the very least, a barroom brawl.”
“I’ve had so many people from all over the country — and all over the world, actually — come up and say what that film meant to them back in ’71,” he said. “It’s heavy.”
Roundtree returned for Shaft’s Big Score! (1972) and Shaft in Africa (1973), and portrayed the detective on a seven-episode CBS series that aired in 1973. When the franchise was rebooted in 2000, with Samuel L. Jackson as the famous shamus’ nephew, Roundtree played his uncle. He and Jackson reunited in 2019 for another film.
He was born in New Rochelle, New York, on July 9, 1942. John, his father, was a garbage collector and caterer, and Kathryn, his mother, was a maid and a nurse. He went to New Rochelle High School and was a member of the undefeated football team.
Roundtree attended Southern Illinois University as a walk-on after graduating in 1961, but he dropped out in 1963 to pursue a modeling career. Eunice W. Johnson hired him to participate at the Ebony Fashion Fair, and he posed for print commercials for Salem cigarettes and Duke hair products.
Roundtree took Bill Cosby’s guidance and moved to New York in 1967 to perfect his acting skills. He became a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, where he worked alongside Esther Rolle, Arthur French, Robert Hooks, Rosalind Cash, Denise Nicholas, and Moses Gunn (later a Shaft co-star).
When he heard about the Shaft audition, he was at a Philadelphia theater playing the boxer in a production of The Great White Hope.
The original film’s cultural effect, thanks to Parks, extended much beyond its conventional criminal drama concept. Shaft was one of the first big-screen Black characters to stand up for himself and not bow down to anyone, regardless of skin color.
“People approach me and question whether we really need this image of Shaft the Black Superman. In a 1972 interview with Roger Ebert, Parks said, “Hell, yes, there’s a place for John Shaft.” “I was blown away by our Broadway world premiere. Suddenly, I was the villain in the story of a hero. Ghetto youngsters were flocking downtown to see their hero, Shaft, and here was a Black man on television with whom they didn’t have to be ashamed. They may spend their $3 here on whatever they wished to see. Yes, we need films about our people’s past, but we also need heroic illusions about our people. Every now and then, we all need a little James Bond.”
The title song, written and sung by Issac Hayes, was important in the film’s popularity; he sang it at the 1972 Academy Awards ceremony and won the Oscar for best original song.
Roundtree returned to his blaxploitation beginnings in Original Gangstas (1996), a blaxploitation homage starring Fred Williamson, Jim Brown, and Pam Grier.
Earthquake (1974), Escape to Athena (1979), Opposing Force (1986), Maniac Cop (1988), Seven (1995), George of the Jungle (1997), Corky Romano (2001), Brick (2005), Speed Racer (2008), and What Men Want (2019) were among his other films.
On television, he portrayed private investigator “Ice” McAdams on CBS’ Outlaws, disgraced doctor Daniel Reubens on NBC’s Generations, a fire station commander on the WB Network’s Rescue 77, the cold-blooded Mr. Shaw on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, and the cryptic Charles Deveaux on NBC’s Heroes.
His small-screen credits also include appearances on Soul Food, Roc, Chicago Fire, Being Mary Jane, and Family Reunion.
From 1963 to 1973, Roundtree was married to Mary Jane Grant, and from 1980 to 1998, he was married to Karen Michelle Ciernia. His daughters, Kelli, Nicole, Tayler, and Morgan, as well as his son, John, survive.
During his career, Roundtree wasn’t always comfortable with being typecast, but he finally grew to accept it, he said.
His father “was out visiting me in L.A., and I was complaining about [how] 24/7, the Shaft character comes up,” he remembered, “and he says, ‘Son, let me tell you something.'” Many people leave this world with little to their name. ‘Be quiet.'”