Calvin Lockhart, the cool, handsome Bahamian actor whose best work in the '70s included roles in the funky Cotton Comes to Harlem and Uptown Saturday Night plus such kitschy television fare as Get Christie Love! and Starsky and Hutch died on March 29 in his native Nassau of complications from a stroke. He was 72.

He was born Bert Cooper in Nassau, Bahamas on October 18, 1934. He moved to New York when he was 18 to attend an engineering school but he dropped out to pursue an acting career. Not unlike most struggling actors in his day, he paid the bills with various day jobs, from construction work to cab driving, before he landed a role on Broadway in 1960 playing a hoodlum in The Cool World. The show, which also co-starred James Earl Jones, closed quickly after two days. Still, Lockhart was undeterred, and he moved to Europe, performing in Italy, Germany and eventually to the United Kingdom, where he found work on British television and then the movies. In fact 1968 was quite a year for Lockhart and he was featured in good, supporting parts in a variety of movies: the Sammy Davis-Peter Lawford comedy Salt and Pepper; the Sir Richard Attenborough farce Only When I Larf (1968); a pair of exciting, Rod Taylor action-adventure flicks Nobody Runs Forever (aka The High Commissioner), The Mercenaries (aka Dark of the Sun); and a lead role in a hip interracial romance opposite the modish Genevieve Waite in Joanna.

He was used to best advantage in the '70s, where he managed to show his versatility as an actor: the silky smooth con man Reverend Deke in Cotton Comes to Harlem; and his effeminate turn in Myra Breckinridge (both 1970). He oozed urban underworld sophistication in Sidney Poitier's Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Let's Do It Again (1975). In 1974, he returned to the UK to become an actor-in-residence at the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, where he distinguished himself on the stage appearing in such productions as Julius Caesar and Titus Andronicus.

Lockhart returned to the United States and appeared in the Broadway musical Reggae in 1980, and had a limited role in Dynasty playing Jonathan Lake in the 1985-86 season. He had also had roles in a few hit films: John Landis' Coming to America (1988), and a couple of David Lynch films, Wild at Heart (1990) and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992). By the mid-'90s, Lockhart returned to his native Bahamas and worked as a director on several productions for the Freeport Players Guild, a theatrical troupe based in Nassau. He is survived by his wife, Jennifer; sons, Michael and Julien; daughter, Shari; his mother, Minerva; brothers, Carney, Eric and Phillip; and sisters, Delores Bain and Melba Styles.

by Michael T. Toole