film trailer screenshot (Minotaur Prod.) · Public domain

A Jamaican-born character actor who dropped out of law school after winning his first stage role and built a 36-year career on and off Broadway, in film from 1952, and on television. He earned a Tony nomination in 1963 for The Lady of the Camellias and, in 1965, founded the Theatre of Being in Los Angeles, one of the few theatres of its era built specifically to give Black actors leading roles rather than the ethnic parts Hollywood otherwise offered him.