Celebrating The Life And Legacy Of Richard Roundtree: A Black Star Netwo...

the death of Richard Roundtree is a loss, for sure.
In retrospect, he deserved to have a much higher-profile career.  He should have been able to do the same types of projects as someone like Sean Connery, Harrison Ford or Michael Caine.
In the 1980s he seemed to disappear, totally.  Virtually all of his peers in the black action-movie movement were abandoned by Hollywood by the Reagan era.  Richard Pryor managed to hang on with a series of increasingly rote comedies, and Eddie Murphy "took over" as the nod to diversity in action actors, though in Murphy's case, his characters tended not to do much besides flirt with the women he interacted with.
The rise of VCRs and the (eventually dominant) VHS tape format led to an increased cult status for Roundtree as the Shaft films and others gradually became commercially available.
By the early 1990s, he began appearing in guest roles on episodic television, like Beverly Hills 90210 and Fresh Prince of Bel Air.   Generation X hip-hop performers and fans re-embraced the Shaft movies and turned them into a kind of coming-of-age touchstone.  An early 90s Burger King television commercial spliced in footage of the first Shaft movie.  A 'class reunion' of sorts took place in 1996's Original Gangstas, reuniting Roundtree with several of his "blaxploitation" peers nearly 15 years before Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables franchise came out.  DVDs of his signature films continued the exposure momentum where VHS tapes left off.
Despite the uptick of slightly more visible work (mostly, interacting with African-American casts), Roundtree still never managed to have a full revival of his career as a leading man, whether in movies or television.  Just semi-random supporting roles and cameos.
At least he did get to revisit the Shaft role later in life in the two reboot films. (Both, to me, were just okay).  In recent years he also had a supporting role in the Netflix sitcom Family Reunion, playing a pastor and family patriarch alongside Tia Mowry and Loretta Devine.

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