Louis Gossett Jr., the veteran 85-year-old stage and screen actor who co-starred with Sidney Poitier in the original 1959 Broadway production and subsequent film of Lorraine Hansberry’s “A Raisin in the Sun,” is succinct.
“If there wasn’t a Sidney Poitier,” he said Friday from his Atlanta home, “there wouldn’t be a Louis Gossett Jr.”
Poitier won ecstatic reviews for his Broadway starring role as Walter Lee Younger, a black driver full of big dreams on the south side of Chicago.
“Mr. Poitier is a remarkable actor with tremendous power that is always under control,” Brooks Atkinson wrote in DailyExpertNews. “He is as eloquent when he has nothing to say as he is when he has a keen sense of speaking. . He can convey devious thought processes as graphically as clown and dance.”
Critics were equally enthusiastic about the 1961 film: The Times’ Bosley Crowther wrote that Poitier is “limber and electric” and “radiates the lightning of an angry, violent man who dreams of breaking the shackles of his economic slavery with a little money in which he has come to the family.”
In a phone call, Gossett reflected on the lessons Poitier taught him on the set of “A Raisin in the Sun”; adventures from their Broadway days; and the lasting impact of a man he considered family. These are edited fragments.
The 1961 adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” was your film debut. What do you remember about the experience?
It was very exciting. It was educational with all those great actors in it – Sidney, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Ivan Dixon – that was royal.
You and Poitier both starred in the Broadway production that received critical acclaim in 1959. What advice did he give you about translating that success into film?
He didn’t know, but he taught me some great cinematic tricks for staying on screen, instead of the editor going elsewhere. You learn that when you learn to act in front of a camera. So now it’s instinctual to make love to the cameraman and the editor and the director and the writer.
How was the film’s reception?
I was pleasantly surprised. It was a tricky part of history, so it was a pleasure and a blessing to be a part of that success. And it led to more success. Folks from that cast — Ivan Dixon, Ruby Dee — we all made it because of the leg up we got from “A Raisin in the Sun.”
What was he like when the cameras were off?
He was a very charismatic young man. Very brilliant. He grew up on Cat Island and it was an adjustment he had to make to go from there, where the majority were black, to America, where the majority were white people. It was very difficult to get rid of his accent. He was on the roofs of buildings where he would study the news broadcasts so he could talk.
Do you have memorable stories from your Broadway days?
I remember playing poker on Saturday night between shows, and he owes me $75. Do you think I’m gonna make it? [Laughs]. He had a full house of tens and I had a full house of jacks.
And I remember going for lunch after Wednesday and Saturday matinees. Me and Ivan Dixon and Robert Hooks, who was the understudy, had to do it like a football plan. One person would run out and turn left toward Times Square, and the other would run out and turn right toward Eighth Avenue, and half the fans waiting to see him would follow those two, and then it’s very narrow was, Sidney would run out and go to the hotel and come out the other side and go to Downey’s which was a famous restaurant. And he would get a good lunch and dinner without being bombarded with fans. He was very hot.
I can see it, just knowing how crazy New York is these days.
Oh, now it’s even worse. It was very fun. It was a great learning period from [the theater director] Lloyd Richards and them all, with Sidney as the king.
What is the most important thing he taught you?
The most important thing I learned from him is the art of acting in front of a camera or in front of people. I had the talent and I had the good studies in class, but with him it became an art. Every time he did it on stage or in a movie, it was like the first time. It was very difficult for me not to copy it. It forced me to go originally to my talent that God gave me.
What does he mean to you?
He and his wife are family. I call him once a month to check in. We ended up in the same places, he did one thing and I did another in the same cities. If he was around I should go see him. We had a good time. A great time. I loved him very much.
