Biography
This page uses content from the Paul Winfield biography page on the English version of Wikipedia and is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. This list of authors can be seen in the page history. Rotten Tomatoes disclaims any and all warranties as to the accuracy or reliability of the content.
Paul Edward Winfield (May 22, 1939 – March 7, 2004) was an Academy Award-nominated American television and film actor. Winfield was openly gay in his private life, but remained discreet about it in the public eye. He was best known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder and as General Casey in the film Mars Attacks!.
History
Winfield was born in Los Angeles, California. He first became well-known to audiences when he appeared for several years opposite Diahann Carroll on the groundbreaking television series Julia. He also starred as Martin Luther King, Jr. in the miniseries King. In 1973, he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor for Sounder (1972), becoming the third African American to ever earn a nomination for a leading role. The other two were Dorothy Dandridge and Sidney Poitier. Though it should be noted that Sounder co-star Cicely Tyson was also nominated that year for a leading role, for Best Actress. He appeared in the 2003 Disney-produced TV remake of Sounder. Winfield played the part of "Jim the Slave" in Huckleberry Finn (1974) which was a musical.
Winfield also starred in more recent miniseries, including Roots: The Next Generations, Queen: The Story of an American Family and Scarlett.
Winfield gained many fans for several of his brief but memorable roles in science fiction TV programs and movies. He was Captain Clark Terrell, an unwitting minion of Khan Noonien Singh, in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and a friendly but crusty cop partnered with Lance Henriksen in The Terminator. On the small screen, he appeared as General Richard Franklin, father of regular character Dr. Stephen Franklin, on Babylon 5 and as an alien captain who communicates in metaphor in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Darmok." He also provided voices on the cartoons Spider-Man, The Magic School Bus, Batman Beyond, and The Simpsons, on the latter voicing the Don King parody Lucius Sweet. He was The Mirror on the TV show The Charmings, 1987 - 1988.
His first major feature film role was The Lost Man (1969) starring Sidney Poitier . He appeared as gay characters in the films Mike's Murder (1984) and Relax...It's Just Sex (1998).
He was nominated for an Emmy Award for his performance in the aforementioned King and Roots: The Next Generations. He won an Emmy Award, in 1995, for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series, for his appearance as Judge Harold Nance in an episode of the CBS drama Picket Fences.
Throughout his career, Winfield frequently managed to perform in the theater. His only Broadway production, Checkmates, was in 1988, and co-starred Ruby Dee and Denzel Washington, who was also making his Broadway debut. He also appeared in productions at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.
Winfield died of a heart attack in 2004. He was 64. At the time of his death, he was a narrator for the A&E show City Confidential. His long-time partner of 30 years, architect Charles Gillan Jr. died in 2002.
External links
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