Biography
Richard Roundtree was an American actor. He was best known for playing private detective John Shaft in the 1971 film Shaft and its sequels Shaft's Big Score! (1972), Shaft in Africa (1973), the 2000 film Shaft and the 2019 film Shaft.
Born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1942, Roundtree worked as a model before joining the Negro Ensemble Company. He received a Golden Globe nomination for New Star of the Year – Actor for Shaft. His later credits included roles in Se7en (1995), George of the Jungle (1997), Speed Racer (2008) and the television series Heroes (2006) and Desperate Housewives (2004). He played Assistant Vice Principal Trueman in the 2006 film Brick.
Roundtree died in Los Angeles in 2023.
