I learned today from the Power Line picks that Yaphet Kotto has died. I learned from the obituary that Scott (I assume) linked to that Kotto was Jewish. I had no idea.
Kotto wasn’t a convert to Judaism. According to ManishTana, a website run by an Orthodox rabbi, Kotto’s father immigrated to the U.S. from Cameroon in the 1920s as an observant Jew who could speak Hebrew. Kotto reportedly said that his father’s ancestors were African Jews who originally came from the area of modern Israel and migrated through Egypt to Cameroon.
Kotto is remembered for his roles as villains, including the dictator Dr. Kananga in the James Bond film “Live and Let Die” and Idi Amin in the TV movie “Raid on Entebbe.” However, he played a good police lieutenant in “Across 110th Street” (1972). Anthony Quinn played the (mostly) bad captain with whom the Kotto character butted heads.
Quinn stole scenes from pretty much every actor he ever shared the screen with. However, Kotto, still early in his career, just about held his own in this film.
If you haven’t seen “Across 110th Street,” I recommend that you do. It’s sometimes considered part of the Blaxploitation genre of the early 1970s (“Shaft” and all that). I don’t think of it that way. I consider it one of the best police movies ever. The racial tension sets it apart.
Quentin Tarantino is an admirer of “Across 110th Street.” He paid tribute to it in “Jackie Brown,” my favorite Tarantino movie. The film, starring Pam Grier (who gained early fame in Blaxploitation movies), opens and closes with the theme song from the movie, by Bobby Womack.
Kotto took his Judaism very seriously. He speculated that if he hadn’t been an actor, he would have become a Rabbi. That’s a congregation I would have loved to be part of.
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