Richard Roundtree, an icon of Blaxploitation film who starred as detective John Shaft in Gordon Parks’ 1971 action thriller, died Tuesday afternoon after a short battle with pancreatic cancer. He was 81 years old.
Patrick McMinn, who has been Richard Roundtree’s manager since 1987, has confirmed his passing. In a statement, McMinn expressed, “Richard’s work and career served as a turning point for African American leading men in film. The impact he had on the industry cannot be overstated.”
Richard Roundtree began his journey as a leading man in the world of screen acting. After starting his career in modeling, he landed the role of “Shaft” at the age of 28, which marked his feature film debut. The MGM production turned out to be a breakthrough hit, earning $12 million in ticket sales with a modest $500,000 production budget, and notably contributed to saving the studio from financial troubles. “Shaft” not only paved the way for a prolific decade of Blaxploitation filmmaking but also underscored Hollywood’s historical oversight of Black talent and the vast moviegoing audiences they could engage.
When questioned about the label of “exploitation” associated with “Shaft” in a 2019 interview with the New York Times, Richard Roundtree expressed some uncertainty about the term.
“I had the privilege of working with the classiest gentleman possibly that I’ve ever known in the industry, Gordon Parks. So, that word, exploitation, I take offense to with any attachment to Gordon Parks… I’ve always viewed that as a negative. Exploitation. Who’s being exploited?” Roundtree stated. “But it gave a lot of people work. It gave a lot of people an entry into the business, including a lot of our present-day producers and directors. So, in the big picture, I view it as a positive.”
Two sequels to the iconic “Shaft” quickly followed within a two-year span: “Shaft’s Big Score” and “Shaft in Africa.” In 1973, there was an attempt to create a “Shaft” television series starring Roundtree, but it had a brief run that only lasted a handful of episodes. icon of Blaxploitation film
Reflecting on that time, Roundtree expressed his regrets, saying, “You can’t erase events, but that’s one I wish I could. I had just come back from ‘Shaft in Africa’ when they tried to convert the character to television. It wasn’t going to happen. That was an ugly point in my long, illustrious career.”
Indeed, Roundtree’s career was long and illustrious. He transcended his star-making role as Shaft, with performances in films such as the ensemble disaster film “Earthquake,” a leading role alongside Peter O’Toole in “Man Friday,” and a part as an ill-fated detective in Larry Cohen’s monster comedy “Q — The Winged Serpent.” He also made frequent guest appearances on TV, with credits that include “Roots,” “Magnum P.I.,” and “The Love Boat.”