Five Great Rupert Crosse Guest Appearances

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https://popculturereferences.com/fiv...t-appearances/

In a feature spotlighting character actors who routinely do strong guest appearances on TV series, Brian spotlights five fine TV performances by Rupert Crosse.

Today, we look at five great guest appearances by Rupert Crosse.

This is “Following a Star,” a new feature where I spotlight five great guest spots by an actor who frequently did/does guest spots on TV series in their careers. It doesn’t mean that they’ve NEVER been regulars on shows, but obviously I’m not looking to spotlight people who are best known for their regular TV roles (like no Jason Alexander or Florence Henderson, for instance).

Since this is Black History Month, I’ll specifically spotlight Black character actors this month.

The first African-American actor to be nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar, Rupert Crosse started his acting career after a stint in the Army at the end of the 1950s. He was taught by John Cassavetes (Cassavates was a bit of a wunderkind, as he was younger than Crosse), and the iconic director used Crosse in a few of his films. While working on a Western film with Jack Nicholson, the two actors became close friends. In 1969, Crosse appeared in the film The Reivers, with Steve McQueen, netting himself a Best Supporting Actor Oscar. Crosse’s last major work was a sitcom with Don Adams called The Partners (about a pair of bumbling detectives). Tragically, Crosse passed away from lung cancer in 1973, only 45 years old. However, he still had a strong amount of work in that short period of time.

The Bill Cosby Show (Felix E. LeBlanc)



Exactly one week after the Bonanza episode, Crosse was on The Bill Cosby Show Season 2’s “The Lincoln Letter,” where he plays an estate lawyer who reveals that Chet (Bill Cosby) has inherited a letter from Abraham Lincoln that his great-aunt had that was passed down in the Kincaid family (amusingly, Beah Richards plays Chet’s mother in this episode. She also played the mother of Cosby’s character in the I Spy episode where Crosse played the bad guy, so this is a bit of a reunion episode). Crosse’ LeBlanc gets a spotlight in the episode as he becomes obsessed with Chet getting as much money as possible for the letter in question, only to find out in the end that it was a letter TO Lincoln, not FROM Lincoln. At the very end, though, upon reading the letter in question, they see her mention that this letter was her SECOND letter to Lincoln, in response to HIS reply, so there IS an actual Lincoln letter somewhere in her possessions!