Actor Yaphet Kotto, best known for his appearance as the villain in the James Bond film Live and Let Die and later as an integral part of the 1990's NBC series Homocide: Life on the Street, passed away last night in The Philippines. His cause of death was not released. He was 81.
A few weeks ago, I was watching a weekend marathon of the original Hawaii Five-O on The Decades Network. Among the episodes that was aired was one from the first season in which Kotto played a Vietnam veteran who thought he was on the battlefield and ends up shooting Danno (played by James MacArthur) all the while confusing him for a wounded war buddy.
It was a very intense episode. You couldn't keep your eyes off Kotto. By watching the episode, I could sense that Kotto's presence was upping everyone's game especially MacArthur with whom he had considerable screen time.
One of Kotto's other notable roles on the small screen was his portrayal of Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the TV film Raid on Entebbe which dramatized the IDF rescue mission of passengers hijacked by Palestinian terrorists aboard an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris.
There was a certain irony on Kotto playing Amin given that he was Jewish. In a 2019, Kotto praised his father, a crown prince in Cameroon, for instilling Judaism in him. "If it weren’t for him, I would have probably gone to hatred or violence or drugs or alcohol," said Kott, "I escaped all of those things because of Judaism."
It certainly served him well as well the people who lives he touched. R.I.P.
No comments:
Post a Comment