Louis Gossett Jr., Stargate’s Conflicted Jaffa Gerak, Dies At 87

Stargate SG-1: "The Fourth Horseman, Part 1"

Veteran actor Louis Gossett Jr. has died at the age of 87 in Santa Monica, California. The news comes from a statement from his family (via the Associated Press). No cause of death was given.

While Gossett is known by many for his more than 200 film and television credits, Stargate fans will remember him as the conflicted Jaffa leader Gerak, featured in a major story arc in the ninth season of Stargate SG-1.

Gossett came to Stargate when the veteran sci-fi show was reinventing itself with new stories and new characters. He was cast as Gerak, a leader among the newly emerging Free Jaffa Nation — but someone who did things very differently than Teal’c and Bra’tac. Gerak proved to be an antagonistic figure and a thorn in the side of Earth, finally capitulating to the message of the Ori.

Gerak needed to be a complex and nuanced character, and Gossett’s performance delivered this in spades. At the end of his five episodes (stretching through the first half of Season Nine) Gerak is confronted by Teal’c and ultimately redeemed, remembering his most deeply held values and sacrificing himself to save countless innocents.

Gerak is turned into a Prior of the Ori. From “The Fourth Horseman”

Louis Gossett Jr. was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1936. He got his start in theater in the 1950s, winning critical acclaim for “A Raisin in the Sun” alongside Sidney Poitier. He transitioned to film and TV work during the 1960s. He won an Emmy for his role as Fiddler in 1977’s seminal mini-series Roots, and he was the first Black man to win a supporting actor Oscar (for An Officer and a Gentleman).

In more than six decades on film and television Gossett brought a heavyweight acting presence to everything from Good Times and The Partridge Family to Iron Eagle, and more recently Halle Berry’s genre-themed series Extant and the hit HBO series Watchmen. His science fiction bona fides also included the landmark character drama Enemy Mine, in which he played an alien marooned alongside a human (Dennis Quaid) with whom his people were at war.