Heavyset (sometimes overweight), black player who began his career off-Broadway in "Take a Giant Step" (1956) and won acclaim, and an OBIE Award, for his performance in the all-star production of Jean Genet's "The Blacks" (1961) in which he played a black man who is transformed into an aged white woman. Adept at both ironic comedy and serious drama, Cambridge often starred in films with racial themes including the satirical "Watermelon Man" (1970) as a white bigot who wakes up to find himself suddenly turned into a black man. Cambridge, who was also memorable in "The President's Analyst" (1967), and "Cotton Comes to Harlem" (1970), died of a heart attack on the set of a TV movie in which he was playing Idi Amin Dada.
- Born:
February 26, 1933 in New York, New York
- Died:
November 29, 1976.
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Job Titles:
Actor, Airplane-wing cleaner, Bouncer, Hot-rod racer, Judo instructor, Taxi driver
Education
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Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York, psychology and English
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Flushing High School, Flushing, New York
Milestones
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1946 Returned to NYC from Sydney, Nova Scotia
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1956 TV debut on "Naked City" and "You'll Never Get Rich" episodes
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1956 Off-Broadway stage debut as bartender in "Take a Giant Step"
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1959 Screen acting debut in "The Last Angry Man"
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1961 Breakthrough stage performance in Genet's "The Blacks"
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1964 Produced first record album, "Ready or Not, Here's Godfrey Cambridge"
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1976 Died of heart attack on Warner Bros. set of "Victory at Entebbe" in which he was starring as Idi Amin