YAPHET KOTTO!!

there also seems to be a punk band from california with the same name.

in homicide he is SICILIAN!! How great is that!?

Yeah, 'Blue Collar' is his greatest moment though.

Guy Killed by Alien in 'Alien' Now Believes He's Seen Real Aliens
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9kw4mz/guy-killed-by-alien-in-alien-now-believes-hes-seen-real-aliens

Understand that I felt special and disillusioned by this whole conversation. My initial goal was simple. Speak with Kotto about his infamous death in Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece Alien for a story and submit. But buried at the bottom of my email exchange with his talent agent, Ryan Goldhar were the words, "he has also asked if you're open to discussing his UFO experiences in the Philippines."

I had to wonder what Goldhar was thinking to himself when he had to relay this information to me. This was an immensely talented, multi-award winning, Emmy-nominated icon. I can call him that because he paved the way for future African American sci-fi roles in Alien, and he played the Bond villain Kananga in Live and Let Die—an exclusive privilege on its own. His actor credits list is 95 strong, so his reputation is intact. But despite all that, this showbiz legend wanted to speak about his lifelong association with aliens.

While it would've been easy for me to dismiss the request as a strive for attention or simple delusion, the infinite examples of people claiming to have been abducted are out there. Yes, the irony of a legend from Alien talking about real life aliens sat with me, but I listened. Here are bits of that unfiltered, hour-long exchange that made me question whether Yaphet Kotto was telling me an amazing truth or something entirely imaginary.

VICE: Well I guess we can get right down to it. I've been following you a while and this is the first time in years that I've seen you do an interview, and therefore, I haven't heard about this alien stuff.

Yaphet Kotto: Well I don't normally do interviews, as you already know. There have been five or six people who've tried to speak to me and I've refused. But this was important to me. When my publicist said some journalist was willing to talk about this, it compelled me to come out with it. It has been 50 years of me dealing with these UFOs and aliens.

Great name, great actor, if your movie needed an angry black guy in the 70s and band, he was your go-to guy.

.. and band? Where the fuck did that come from?

... 80s became 'band', wtf?

RIP. loved this guy so much. everybody did.

Aw shit :(

Aw. RIP royalty.

Among 100 other great things Yaphet Kotto cut a single in 1967 produced by Hugh Masekela and it swings a heavy fist, RIPhttps://t.co/VOVEtLI622

— Nate Patrin (@natepatrin) March 16, 2021

one of my favorite screen presences if not my fave, better ones are not coming to mind atm

So incredibly watchable, and the voice of course. Sad he's gone

"A full-length LP by the (then) TV actor, called The Almanac of Enoch Shadobee, was announced in the September 9, 1967 issue of Billboard, but was never released."

Now more than half of the 7 actors at the table of the chest-burster scene in Alien have died: Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, John Hurt, Yaphet Kotto.

— Jason Zinoman (@zinoman) March 16, 2021

this is weird but I swear I thought he died like 25 years ago and that was why they killed him off on Homicide.

I guess you didn't actually watch the finale movie then?

anyway, RIP, love him, just watched an episode of The Deuce yesterday where a character learns how to act by watching Kotto in Blue Collar, checks out

Terrific in the TV series Homicide too.

Man I should have revived this thread when Kotto posted this story a couple of years ago about him, Robert Mitchum and Jason Robards. Hell of a read:

https://www.facebook.com/yaphet.f.kotto/posts/1739850889418208

Saw this on another forum: Kotto appearing on Michael Moore's TV Nation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R_3QwoV-QU

Ned that's a great story but reads like it was put through translation software a few times. Very weird!

Today I learned Yaphet Kotto was Jewish!

‘Remembering Yaphet Kotto, charismatic actor and proud Jew’ http://jd.fo/g9dJ