Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Frederick Kotto (born November 15, 1937) is an African-American actor, known for numerous film roles including the science-fiction/horror film Alien, the science-fiction/action film The Running Man and as the main villain in the 1973 James Bond movie Live and Let Die. He is also a music producer who is a part of Legendary Inc., founded by Young L of The Pack.
Kotto was born in New York City, the son of Gladys Marie, a nurse and army officer, and Avraham Kotto (originally named Njoki Manga Bell), a businessman from Cameroon. In his autobiography titled Royalty, Kotto writes that his father was “the crown prince of Cameroon.” Kotto stated that he found out that his family was royal in adult life while studying his family’s lineage, and also stated that he is a descendant of Queen Victoria, which has been denied by the Buckingham Palace press office.
Kotto’s father, who emigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, was, according to Kotto, an observant Jew who spoke Hebrew. Kotto also stated that his great-grandfather King Alexander Bell ruled the Douala region of Cameroon in the late-19th century and was also a practicing Jew. Kotto has said that his paternal family oriinated from Israel and migrated to Egypt and then Cameroon, and have been African Jews for many generations.
Being black and Jewish gave other children (both whites and blacks) even more reason, he has said, to pick on him growing up in New York City. “It was rough coming up,” Kotto said. “And then going to shul, putting a yarmulke on, having to face people who were primarily Baptists in the Bronx meant that on Fridays, I was in some heavy fistfights.”
By the age of 16, he 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. He performed in Nothing But a Man in 1964 and played a supporting role in the 1968 film The Thomas Crown Affair. 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 in the 1977 television film Raid on Entebbe. He also starred as an auto worker in the 1978 film Paul Schrader film Blue Collar.
The following year he played Parker in the sci-fi horror film Alien. Kotto and Harry Dean Stanton played ships Engineers Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) who stay behind to monitor their progress and make repairs while the crew check out the planetoid.. which results in all hell breaking loose. Alien garnered both critical acclaim and box office success, receiving an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects, Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Ridley Scott, and Best Supporting Actress for Cartwright, along with numerous other award nominations. It has remained highly praised in subsequent decades, being inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2002 for historical preservation as a film which is “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.
He followed with a supporting role in the 1980 prison drama Brubaker, featured in The Star Chamber (1983), and Terror in the Aisles (1984). In 1987, he appeared in the futuristic sci-fi movie The Running Man and in the underrated 1988 action-comedy Midnight Run, in which he portrayed Alonzo Mosely, an FBI agent. He also had a supporting role in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare (1991).
He then played Lieutenant Al Giardello in the television series Homocide: Life on the Street (1993-1999). He has written two books: Royalty, and The Second Coming of Christ, and also wrote scripts for Homicide: Life on the Street.
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