The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
On March 15, local time, American actor Yaphet Kotto died at the age of 81 at his home near Manila. Coto has been in the film for more than 30 years, participating in the science fiction classic "Alien" and the 007 series of movies "Iron King Kong Brave to Break the Dark Devil Party" and many other works in the history of the film, and is one of the most active Hollywood African-American actors in the second half of the last century.
Afit Cotto played Parker in Alien
Tessie Sinahon, a Filipino, AfitKoto's third wife, posted the death of Afit Koto on social media: "Although you often play the villain in movies, in my heart, you are a real hero. You are a good father, you are a good husband, you are a Legend of Hollywood. May you rest in peace, my dear. I will miss you every day for the rest of my life. ”
Born on November 15, 1939 in New York City, to a cameroonian immigrant family, Yafit Koto was, according to his later autobiography, the son of a Prince of Cameroon, whose ancestors date back to the end of the eighteenth century when he ruled douala, the largest city in cameroon, and its surrounding areas. In the 1920s, his father, who had converted to Judaism in Africa, immigrated to New York, usa, and changed his name to Abraham Cotto. Abraham, a merchant, named his son Afit, which means "beautiful" in Hebrew.
As a child, Affitta experienced the misfortune of his parents' divorce, mostly raised by his maternal grandparents. Halfway through high school, he dropped out of school and embarked on a career in society. In the summer of 1954, the movie "Docks" was grandly released, and Marlon Brando's performance on the screen completely conquered the young Cotto, making him determined to devote himself to acting and becoming a multi-habitat actor.
Soon, he joined a folk theater company in New York and was on broadway in his early twenties. In the mid-1960s, Cotto began to appear in film and television, and achieved a career breakthrough in the 1973 film "Iron King Kong Brave To Break the Dark Devil Party".
Cotto played the conspirator Cannanga in "Donkey Kong Braves the Dark Devil Party" (also translated as "007 You Die and I Live").
In the 007 film starring Roger Moore, Coto plays the villain, Nicknamed "Mr. Big," the drug lord Cananga, who runs a vast drug trafficking network based on a small Caribbean island. Naturally, he could not escape the desperate pursuit of James Bond, and his final fate was one of the most dramatic scenes in the history of the 007 series. It is worth mentioning that when he starred in "Iron King Kong Braved the Dark Devil Party", Coto was only 33 years old, which is the lowest age record for the major villain actor in all 007 movies so far.
In 1979, Cotto played the role of Engineer Parker in Ridley Scott's Alien, which became his most classic screen image in more than three decades. Years later, at a re-screening of Alien, Coteau recalled that on August 28, 1963, martin Luther King, jr., the leader of the black civil rights movement, gave his famous speech "I Have a Dream" in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., in front of hundreds of thousands of black people from all over the United States. Coto, who was 23 at the time, was also one of the following. I stood on the steps and watched Dr. King talk about his dreams. I was worried, I didn't know if my dream was possible. ”
That year, Coto was "electrocuted" for the first time, and became a nameless and nameless extra in the Western film "Texas Four Masters". Many years later, I returned to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington with my daughter. I found the position where I had stood and told my daughter about this past. Suddenly, a sightseeing bus stopped nearby, and a group of Japanese children came down from it. They ran in my direction, saying something excited in their mouths. I don't understand Japanese at all, but there is one word that is real and clear : 'Alien! abnormity! ’。 I was stunned. At that moment, I suddenly realized that the question I had asked myself many years ago when I stood in this place actually had the answer at this moment - my dream had come true! ”
It was also during the filming of Alien that director Irving Keshner, who had worked successfully with Cotto in the past, contacted him, hoping that the latter would play the role of Han Solo's black man rando in the new film he was preparing for, Star Wars Episode 2: The Empire Strikes Back, but was politely rejected by Koto. "I want to come back to Earth, I don't want to star in space sci-fi movies in a row, and I'm afraid I'll narrow the path." Years later, Cotto recalled.
In addition to "Alien" and "Donkey Kong Breaks the Dark Party," Cotto has starred in Hollywood-renowned titles such as "Blue Collar" and "Harem," as well as an FBI agent in Robert De Niro's Midnight Run and Arnold Schwarzenegger's nemesis in the black action film The Running Man. After the 1990s, Coteau gradually moved away from the big screen and transformed into a TV drama actor, participating in American dramas such as "Spring of The Law of Reason", and was also nominated for a TV Emmy Award.
Editor-in-Charge: Zhang Zhe
Proofreader: Liu Wei