Richard Roundtree

In the April 24, 2000 issue of People, Roundtree disclosed he had been diagnosed with breast cancer and had undergone a modified radical mastectomy in the fall of 1993.

"I don't know anything about black exploitation, especially in the context of 'Shaft'. I leave that subject alone. I'm proud to have done that film with a class act like Gordon Parks. You can't say his name and blaxploitation in the same sentence". --Richard Roundtree in Los Angeles Times, March 12, 1996

Roundtree on "Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored": "When I was growing up my dad always had a room that he rented out, and a man named Mr. Warren used to live there. He was a construction worker. And on the weekend he would sit on the porch and smoke a cigar and tell us how the world worked. I've drawn on the Mr. Warrens in my life, and my dad, too. They all came back to me while I was making the film" --quoted in Daily News, January 21, 1996

"I was diagnosed with breast cancer in '93. Now I talk to men's groups about early detection, because men tend to ignore things that are going wrong with them. I tell them, 'If I did that, I wouldn't be here today.'"--Richard Roundtree in Biography Magazine 2002