MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Richard Roundtree, who died yesterday at the age of 81, was easily one of the coolest actors ever.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHAFT")
UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR: (As character) That you, Shaft?
RICHARD ROUNDTREE: (As John Shaft) Bet your lovely self it is. And I'm ready. Can you dig it?
MARTIN: In the 1971 movie "Shaft," Roundtree was an early Black action hero and became an icon of Black film. NPR's Neda Ulaby has our remembrance.
(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THEME FROM 'SHAFT'")
ISAAC HAYES: (Singing) Who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man?
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTISTS: (Singing) Shaft.
HAYES: Can you dig it?
NEDA ULABY, BYLINE: When the acclaimed photographer Gordon Parks made a movie about a Black private eye that came out just three years after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he cast a complete unknown - a former college football player and model who commanded the screen from the very first minutes of its opening sequence, says film scholar Novotny Lawrence.
NOVOTNY LAWRENCE: Gordon Parks opens the movie with this guy. He comes up out of the subway. He's walking down the streets of New York City, and he's owning it.
ULABY: John Shaft was a new figure in film.
LAWRENCE: Because he's unapologetically Black, and he has a swag. He's dressed to the nines. He's a bad hush your mouth.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHAFT")
CHARLES CIOFFI: (As Vic Androzzi) How come a couple of cats from Harlem come downtown this morning looking for John Shaft?
ULABY: As Shaft, Roundtree clapped back at white cops who said dumb things.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHAFT")
ROUNDTREE: (As John Shaft) Well, they're soul brothers. They came down so I could teach them the handshake.
ULABY: And he busted mobsters.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "SHAFT")
ROUNDTREE: (As John Shaft) My name is John Shaft. Freeze.
LAWRENCE: He gave Black people that icon - in the '70s - Shaft.
ULABY: "Shaft" was a huge success. It helped create an entire genre - blaxploitation. Roundtree went on to star in a few "Shaft" sequels, but Novotny Lawrence says it was hard to become an A-list actor in the 1970s by revolutionizing Black masculinity on screen.
LAWRENCE: So I think his legacy is one that we need to think of in terms of perseverance.
ULABY: With more than 150 movie and TV credits, ranging from "Roots" to "Desperate Housewives" to "Being Mary Jane," and Lawrence says Roundtree went public with his 1993 diagnosis with breast cancer.
LAWRENCE: And became a figure to demonstrate, men, it's OK. Shaft had breast cancer, right?
ULABY: Richard Roundtree died yesterday from pancreatic cancer. Actor Samuel L. Jackson, who starred with Roundtree in a couple of later shaft films, suggested on social media that Roundtree was surely walking that walk in heaven, that unforgettable Shaft stride that left deep footprints in film and in American culture.
Neda Ulaby, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF ISAAC HAYES' "THEME FROM SHAFT")
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