Yaphet Kotto: a life in pictures

Best known for his roles as Parker in Alien, Mr Big in Live and Let Die and Lt Al Giardello in Homicide: Life on the Street, Yaphet Kotto has died at the age of 81. Here we look back at the career of the pioneering actor

Main image: Yaphet Kotto as Parker, chief engineer of the Nostromo, in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Alien, 1979 Photograph: 20th Century Fox/Everett Collection/Alamy

  • Yaphet Frederick Kotto was born in New York City on 15 November 1939. He began studying acting at 16 and played parts on stage before his screen career took off.Here he is in The Monkey Hustle in 1976
    Yaphet Kotto in The Monkey Hustle in 1976

  • Nothing But A Man, 1964

    Kotto’s first major role was as Jocko, one of a group of African-American railroad workers suffering oppression and discrimination in a racist small town near Birmingham, Alabama in the early 1960s
    Yaphet Kotto in Nothing But A Man, 1964

  • The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968

    Yaphet Kotto played one of the the bank robbers in the heist movie
    Kotto as one of the the bank robbers in the heist movie The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968

  • 5 Card Stud, 1968

    Dean Martin as Van Morgan, Kotto as bartender Little George and Robert Mitchum as the Reverend Jonathan Rudd
    Dean Martin as Van Morgan, Yaphet Kotto as bartender Little George and Robert Mitchum as The Reverend Jonathan Rudd in 5 Card Stud, 1968

  • The High Chaparral, 1968

    Kotto in the episode The Buffalo Soldiers
    Yaphet Kotto in the episode of The High Chaparral entitled The Buffalo Soldiers in 1968

  • Across 110th Street, 1972

    Anthony Quinn as Captain Mattelli and Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Pope in this Harlem set crime movie. The brilliant title track by Bobby Womack and JJJohnson was used by Quentin Tarantino in his 1997 blaxploitation homage Jackie Brown
    Anthony Quinn and Yaphet Kotto in Across 110th Street, 1972

  • Live and Let Die, 1973

    Kotto as corrupt Caribbean dictator Dr Kananga aka Harlem drugs lord Mr Big in the 1973 Bond movie
    Yaphet Kotto as Mr Big in Live and Let Die, 1973

  • Live and Let Die, 1973

    Yaphet Kotto’s Dr Kananga prepares to lower Roger Moore’s James Bond and Jane Seymour’s Solitaire into a shark tank
    Yaphet Kotto, Roger Moore and Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die, 1973

  • Friday Foster, 1975

    A blaxploitation movie starring Pam Grier and Yaphet Kotto that played into the then current Black Power movement
    A poster for Friday Foster, 1975

  • The Monkey Hustle

    , 1976Yaphet Kotto as Daddy Foxx, topline hustler and conman, puffs on a cigar with his 12-year-old apprentice and imitator, Baby D (Kirk Calloway)
    Kirk Calloway and Yaphet Kotto in The Monkey Hustle, 1976

  • Raid on Entebbe, 1977

    Kotto was nominated for an Emmy for best supporting actor for his role as Idi Amin in the TV movie of the true story about the freeing of hostages at Entebbe airport in Uganda
    Yaphet Kotto as President Idi Amin in Raid on Entebbe, 1977

  • Blue Collar, 1978

    Harvey Keitel as Jerry Bartowski, Richard Pryor as Zeke Brown and Kotto as Smokey James in Paul Schrader’s celebrated crime drama
    Harvey Keitel, Richard Pryor and Yaphet Kotto in Blue Collar, 1978

  • Alien, 1979

    Kotto as Parker, chief engineer of the Nostromo, in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic
    Yaphet Kotto as Parker, chief engineer of the Nostromo, in Ridley Scott’s sci-fi classic Alien, 1979

  • Brubaker, 1980

    Robert Redford and Yaphet Kotto in the prison drama
    Robert Redford and Yaphet Kotto in Brubaker, 1980

  • The Running Man, 1987

    Yaphet Kotto as William Laughlin and Arnold Schwarzenegger as Ben Richards in the dystopian sci-fi movie directed by Paul Michael Glaser
    Yaphet Kotto and Arnold Schwarzenegger in The Running Man, 1987

  • Midnight Run, 1988

    Robert De Niro as bounty hunter Jack Walsh and Yaphet Kotto as FBI Agent Alonzo Mosely in the comedy action movie
    Robert De Niro as bounty hunter Jack Walsh and Yaphet Kotto as FBI Agent Alonzo Mosely in Midnight Run, 1988

  • Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, 1991

    Kotto’s Doc fights with Robert Englund’s Freddy Krueger
    Yaphet Kotto and Robert Englund in Freddy’s Dead: The Final Nightmare, 1991

  • Homicide: Life On The Street, 1993-1999

    Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Al Giardello with the rest of the cast of the multi-award winning Baltimore-set police procedural which was based on the book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon
    Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Al Giardello in Homicide : Life On The Street, 1993-1999

  • Witless Protection, 2008

    Kotto as Ricardo Bodi (alias Alonzo Mosley) in the comedy crime flop which was to be Kotto’s last big screen appearance
    Yaphet Kotto in Witless Protection, 2008

  • Yaphet Kotto (here as as Lt. Al Giardello) 1939 -
    Yaphet Kotto as Lieutenant Al Giardello in Homicide: Life On The Street, 1993-1999
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