Actor ‘deserved more than the parts he got’
NEW YORK — Yaphet Kotto, the commanding actor who brought tough magnetism and stately gravitas to films including the James Bond movie “Live and Let Die” and “Alien,” has died. He was 81.
Kotto’s wife, Tessie Sinahon, announced his death Monday in a Facebook post. She said he died Monday in the Philippines. Kotto’s agent, Ryan Goldhar, confirmed Kotto’s death.
“You played a villain on some of your movies but for me you’re a real hero and to a lot of people,” wrote Sinahon.
Standing 6-foot-3, Yaphet Frederick Kotto was a regular and compelling presence across films, television and Broadway beginning with the films
“Nothing But a Man” (1964) and “The Thomas Crown Affair” (1968). He made his stage debut in a Boston production of “Othello.” In 1969, he replaced James Earl Jones in the Pulitzer-winning “The Great White Hope” on Broadway. His bigscreen breakthrough came as Lt. Pope in 1972’s “Across 110th Street.”
Raised in the Bronx and a descendent of Cameroonian royalty on his father’s side, Kotto was best known for his infuriated FBI agent in “Midnight Run” who has his badge stolen by Robert De Niro, the James Bond villain Mr. Big in “Live and Let Die” and the technician Dennis Parker in 1979’s “Alien.”
“He’s one of those actors who deserved more than the parts he got,” wrote director Ava Duvernay on Twitter. “But he took those parts and made them wonderful all the same.”
Kotto was nominated for an Emmy for his performance as Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in the 1977 television movie “Raid on Entebbe.”
In Paul Schrader’s 1978 “Blue Collar,” about Detroit auto workers, he starred alongside Richard Pryor and Harvey Keitel as the ex-convict Smokey James.
Kotto also co-starred in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger action film “The Running Man” and played Al Giardello from 1993 to 1999 on the NBC series “Homicide: Life on the Street.”
“Memories and respect for Yaphet Kotto, whose film career was legend even before he came to Baltimore to grace our television drama,” said David Simon, author of the book that launched the “Homicide” show. “But for me, he’ll always be Al Giardello, the unlikeliest Sicilian, gently pulling down the office blinds to glower at detectives in his squadroom.”
Kotto sometimes struggled with being typecast as a detective, and he lamented how many of his characters died in the end.
“I’m always called powerful, bulky or imposing,” Kotto told the Baltimore Sun in 1993. “Or they say I fill up a room. I’m a 200pound, 6-foot-3-inch Black guy. And I think I have this image of a monster. It’s very difficult.”
“I want to try to play a much more sensitive man. A family man,” he added. “There is an aspect of Black people’s lives that is not running or jumping.”
Kotto is survived by his wife and six children.
A year after the pandemic’s arrival, U.S. passenger air travel remains at roughly half its PRE-COVID levels and may not fully bounce back anytime soon. Is this really the time to launch a new domestic airline? How about two new airlines? A couple of industry veterans-turnedentrepreneurs think so. Look for flights from the low-fare carriers Avelo Airlines and Breeze Airways soon.
Avelo Airlines
Andrew Levy, former president of the budget carrier Allegiant Air, purchased the charter airline XTRA Airways in 2018. He renamed the company Avelo and planned to turn it into a lowfare, customer-focused airline with scheduled service from smaller airports that serve large metro areas. The official start of the Houstonbased airline will happen in early April, and in the meantime, the company is keeping flight destinations under wraps as they get finalized.
Levy had hoped for the company’s first flights to take off in November, but the pandemic forced the airline to slow things down. Now, however, Levy feels there are a number of factors coming together to make next month the right time to launch.
The major airlines have reduced their numbers of flights, so there is airplane gate and office capacity at airports that had previously been constrained, he said. It’s also a good time to hire flight crews and other experienced airline staff, he added, because many of the big airlines have laid off employees or offered early retirement packages.
In addition, “planes have never been cheaper,” Levy said. The company will fly all Boeing 737-800s, each with a passenger capacity of 189. Keeping to one airplane model helps keep costs down because there are more uniform maintenance procedures, replacement components and crew training.
Breeze Airways
The other new market entrant, Breeze Airways, based in Salt Lake City, also aims to be a low-cost carrier focusing on routes that don’t have current nonstop service, including some airports that the larger airlines have pulled back from. The company was founded in June 2018 by David Neeleman, an aviation veteran who had previously founded other airlines, including the low-fare offerings Westjet and Morris Air, which was purchased by Southwest. Breeze will start 21 years after his launch of Jetblue.
The strategy had always been to serve smaller destinations, said Neeleman, but the specific airports the company will start flying to first have been influenced by the pandemic. A new airline can “cherry-pick what routes to begin with, which offer the most opportunity, and then hyperfocus on those markets to make sure they do really well,” he said.
The airline hopes to receive final certification from the Department of Transportation in the next month or so. At that time, the company will announce routes, start dates and when customers can buy tickets.
In the meantime, the airline, which will be flying Airbus A220s and two Embraer models, has taken delivery of its first few aircraft. The planes are metallic blue, which sets them apart from others in the sky, said company spokesman Gareth Edmonson-jones. “When these fly overhead, there will be no question which airline it is.”
Analysts weigh in
There are other factors working in the new airlines’ favors. The longer-term trend of some people relocating to work remotely from smaller cities means there will be a new set of passengers to serve, said Sherry Stein, head of technology strategy for the airline industry association Societe Internationale de Telecommunicatios Aeronautique. “This shift is creating a new opportunity for new domestic players to enter the market at smaller regional airports, particularly as the big carriers retreat to their hubs,” she said.
Consumers are also open to trying a new low-cost airline, according to Jonathan Kletzel, who follows the in- dustry for PWC, a consulting firm. His group’s analysis found that for roughly the next three to six months, passengers are prioritizing cleanliness, safety and price over airline-loyalty programs.