9. Yaphet Kotto
Born in New York to a Cameroonian immigrant father and a US Army nurse on November 15, 1939, Frederick Samuel Kotto would begin studying acting at the Actors Mobile Theater Studio at just 16 years old. By 19, he had made his professional theater debut in Othello. He would make his film debut in 1963, aged 23, in an uncredited role in 4 for Texas. The world would take notice as he landed the part of the James Bond villain Dr. Kananga / Mr. Big in 1973’s Live and Let Die and the chief engineer Parker in the 1979 sci-fi–horror classic Alien.
Kotto would amass an extensive list of film and TV credits before deciding to retire from acting in the mid-1990s, though he had one final film role in the 2008 comedy crime film Witless Protection. His last part would be to reprise the voice of his character Parker for the 2014 video game Alien: Isolation. He died on March 15, 2021, at the age of 81, near Manila, Philippines. His cause of death was never revealed.
1 thought on “12 Celebrity Deaths That Made 2021 Even More Devastating”
the safety protocols on set are fine, they were all broken that day Halyna Hutchins died. What needs to happen is an investigation as to who brought live rounds on set.