--- name: "Howard Rollins" canonical: "https://film.one/person/howard-rollins" roles: ["Actor"] born: "17 October 1950" died: "8 December 1996" reviewed_on_fi1m: 1 average_as: "actor" average_over: 1 updated: "2026-09-20T06:44:48.982903+00:00" licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL." --- # Howard Rollins Actor. Born 17 October 1950 in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.. Died 8 December 1996. ## Details - **Work:** Actor - **Born:** 17 October 1950, Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. - **Died:** 8 December 1996 - **Also known as:** Howard Rollins Jr., Howard E. Rollins Jr., Howard E. Rollins - **Academy Awards:** 1 Oscar nomination - **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Rollins, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q967653, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0738415/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/95621 ## Streaming the US now - **Amazon Prime Video:** [*A Soldier's Story*](https://film.one/film/a-soldiers-story.md) (76) For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country. ## Fi1m on Howard Rollins > Howard Rollins played still, proud, buttoned-up men, and played them well enough that the films kept asking for nothing else. He was given one part that made his name, waited years for a second, and spent most of what followed on television. In *A Soldier's Story* (1984) Howard Rollins spends most of the film behind dark glasses. Captain Davenport arrives at an army base where nobody wants him, carrying a briefcase and a rank, and Rollins gives him a clipped Washington manner that leaves the white officers nothing to push against. He does not raise his voice. He does not need to. It is a performance built on holding still while everyone around him gives way, and it is the thing Rollins did better than most. He came up through Baltimore theatre, went to New York in 1974 and worked his way through the miniseries *King* (1978) and *Roots: The Next Generations* (1979) before Miloš Forman cast him as Coalhouse Walker Jr., the pianist in *Ragtime* (1981). We have not reviewed it, so we will say only what has been said consistently since: that he played a man insulted past bearing with a pride that seemed to cost him something, and that people who saw it expected a great deal to follow. Very little did. Asked about the gap, he said: "The major issue is that I'm black. I guess the demographics on Madison Avenue don't say that someone like myself can carry a film..." Norman Jewison's *A Soldier's Story* was the film that finally arrived, and it took him straight to television, where from 1988 he played Virgil Tibbs opposite Carroll O'Connor in *In the Heat of the Night* for 121 episodes. What worked was the restraint. Stage-trained, he understood that a man who will not show you what he feels is more interesting than one who will, and he could keep that going for two hours without it curdling into blankness. What did not work was what the films did with it. Jewison's picture wants Davenport as a witness rather than a man: a principle with a briefcase, there to watch Adolph Caesar, Denzel Washington and Art Evans do the feeling. Around the hour mark we caught ourselves wanting him to take the glasses off and say one thing the case did not require, and the film never let him, and that irritation stayed with us. It is the clearest sign we have that there was more behind the performance than the part asked for. He died in 1996, at 46, with one film that everyone remembers, one that we recommend, and six years of a detective series in between. See *A Soldier's Story* for the ensemble, and watch Rollins in it as a study in how much an actor can do while being asked to do almost nothing. ## Biography Howard E. Rollins Jr. (1950–1996) was an American stage, film and television actor. Born in Baltimore, Maryland, he studied theatre at Towson State University before beginning his career in local theatre and moving to New York in the mid-1970s. He gained recognition for his performance as Coalhouse Walker Jr. in the 1981 film *Ragtime*, which earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Rollins played Captain Davenport in the 1984 film *A Soldier's Story* and portrayed Virgil Tibbs in the television series *In the Heat of the Night* from 1988 to 1995. He also appeared in television productions including the miniseries *King* (1978) and *Roots: The Next Generations* (1979). *Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com.* ## On Fi1m (1) - *A Soldier's Story* (1984), Fi1m 76, as Captain Davenport — [page](https://film.one/film/a-soldiers-story.md) ## Complete filmography (29) Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page. - *Remembering Ragtime* (2004), as Coalhouse Walker Jr. (archive footage) - *Drunks* (1997), as Joseph - *Harambee!* (1996), as Chimbuko - *Remember WENN* (1996), series, as George Smith - *New York Undercover* (1994), series, as Reverend Hundley - *With Murder in Mind* (1992), as Samuel Carver - *On the Block* (1990), as Clay Beasley - *In the Heat of the Night* (1988), series, as Virgil Tibbs - *En el calor de la noche* (1988), series, as Chief of Detectives Virgil Tibbs - *Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI* (1986), as T.C. Russell - *The Children of Times Square* (1986), as Otis Travis - *The Boy King* (1986), as Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. - *Wildside* (1985), series, Actor - *He's Fired, She's Hired* (1984), as Raoul - *A Soldier's Story* (1984), as Captain Davenport — Fi1m 76, [page](https://film.one/film/a-soldiers-story.md) - *The House of Dies Drear* (1984), as Walter Small - *A Doctor's Story* (1984), as Dr. Zack Williams - *The House of God* (1984), as Chuck Johnston - *For Us, the Living: The Story of Medgar Evers* (1983), as Medgar Evers - *The Member of the Wedding* (1982), as Honey Brown - *The Neighborhood* (1982), as Allen Campbell - *American Playhouse* (1982), series, as Medgar Evers - *Ragtime* (1981), as Coalhouse Walker Jr. - *Thornwell* (1981), as Carson - *My Old Man* (1979), as Doctor - *Roots: The Next Generations* (1979), series, as George Haley - *The Trial of the Moke* (1978), as James Smith - *King* (1978), series, as Andrew Young - *Another World* (1964), series, Actor ## Awards ### Academy Awards — 0 won, 1 nominated - 1982: Best Supporting Actor (nominated), for *Ragtime* ### Other awards — 2 won - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series 1989: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series (won), for *In the Heat of the Night* - NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series 1983: NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actor in a Drama Series (won), for *For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story* *From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.* --- © Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/howard-rollins