One of the Seventies’ enduring cinematic icons has died. Richard Roundtree, finest identified to generations of moviegoers because the title character within the Shaft movie collection, handed away on Tuesday in Los Angeles. The trigger of demise, based on his supervisor, was pancreatic most cancers, which he had been identified with a number of months earlier. Roundtree was 81 years previous.
Roundtree had an extended and prolific profession on movie and tv. On the small display he appeared on reveals starting from CHiPs to A Different World, from Magnum, P.I. to Grey’s Anatomy. At film theaters, audiences noticed him in movies like Earthquake, Q, Steel, and Brick. But with out query, Roundtree’s signature position was that of non-public eye John Shaft who — based on the Oscar successful theme tune that got here to outline the movie — was “the black private dick that’s a sex machine to all the chicks.”
Based on the novels by Ernest Tidyman, John Shaft was one of the primary black motion heroes of films; a non-public eye who didn’t take any s— from the cops or the New York mob. Shaft’s reputation with audiences not solely led to a whole collection of films and a by-product TV present (all of which additionally starred Roundtree), it helped launch the blaxploitation movie style.
Shaft’s opening scene, which introduces the character as Roundtree strides by means of Times Square to the sounds of Isaac Hayes’ “Theme From Shaft,” is one of the best introductions of any character within the historical past of cinema.
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Shaft’s monumental success in theaters in 1971 led to Shaft’s Big Score! in 1972 and Shaft in Africa in 1973. They have been adopted by a short-lived collection of Shaft TV films in 1973 and ’74. The franchise ended there till Samuel L. Jackson introduced it again to life in 2000 with a brand new Shaft — which solid Roundtree as the brand new Shaft’s uncle. In 2019, one more Shaft was launched, with Roundtree because the elder Shaft, Jackson as his son (sure, within the earlier film they have been uncle and nephew, they determined to retcon that on this movie), and Jesse T. Usher because the youngest Shaft, an analyst for the FBI. Even in his 70s, Roundtree was nonetheless the good as Shaft in and in any other case not significantly good movie.
Shaft was a giant hit; it was additionally an unlimited influential one. To right now’s audiences, the significance and novelty of the John Shaft character, who wouldn’t cop out when there’s hazard all about, is probably not clearly obvious. In the early Seventies, the concept of a “Black James Bond,” as he was usually known as, was past highly effective. And even in 2023, Roundtree’s Shaft stays one of the defining motion heroes in cinema historical past — to not point out one dangerous mom.
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