Richard Gere has issued a tribute to his An Officer and a Gentleman costar Louis Gossett Jr., who simply died at age 87.
Within the movie, Gossett was Gunnery Sergeant Emil Foley, a drill teacher who formed Gere’s character Zack Mayo within the 1982 movie.
The movie earned Gossett an Academy Award for Greatest Supporting Actor, the primary Black performer to win the Supporting Actor Oscar.
“He stayed in character the entire time,” Gere, 74, recalled in a press release. “I don’t assume we ever noticed him socially. He was the drill sergeant 24-hours a day, and it confirmed clearly in his efficiency. He drove each scene he was in.”
Gere stated Gossett was “a tricky man with a coronary heart of gold,” including, “We had been all so happy with him when he received his Oscar.”
Director Taylor Hackford additionally issued a press release that he “admired” Gossett’s stage work.
“Lou Gossett’s Sargent Foley might have been the primary Black character in American cinema to have absolute authority over white characters,” Hackford, 79, says. “The Academy acknowledged his consummate efficiency by voting him an Oscar for Greatest Supporting Actor. He positively deserved it.”
Gossett’s character was initially “written as a White man,” however Hackford stated that modified after the director visited the Navy Officers Flight Coaching Heart in Pensacola, Fla., the place he realized “lots of the Drill Instructors there have been males of shade.”
“I discovered it fascinating that Black & Brown enlisted males had ‘make-or-break’ management over whether or not white school graduates would grow to be officers and fighter pilots,” Hackford explains. “At that second I modified the casting profile for Sargent Foley and began assembly actors of shade.”
