Howard Rollins

Howard Rollins

Born: October 17, 1950
Died: December 8, 1996
in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Howard Rollins (1950–1996) was an American television, film, and stage actor.

He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker Jr. in Ragtime and Virgil Tibbs on In the Heat of the Night.

Movies for Howard Rollins...

Remembering Ragtime
Title: Remembering Ragtime
Character: Coalhouse Walker Jr. (archive footage)
Released: November 16, 2004
Type: Movie
Memories from the making of the classic Milos Forman film "Ragtime".
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Drunks
Title: Drunks
Character: Joseph
Released: March 14, 1997
Type: Movie
At the beginning of a nightly Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, Jim seems particularly troubled. His sponsor encourages him to talk that night, the first time in seven months, so he does - and leaves the meeting right after. As Jim wanders the night, searching for some solace in his old stomping grounds, bars and parks where he bought drugs, the meeting goes on, and we hear the stories of survivors and addicts - some, like Louis, who claim to have wandered in looking for choir practice, who don't call themselves alcoholic, and others, like Joseph, whose drinking almost caused the death of his child - as they talk about their lives at the meeting
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Title: New York Undercover
Character: Reverend Hundley
Released: September 8, 1994
Type: TV
New York Undercover is an American police drama The series stars Detective J.C. Williams and Detective Eddie Torres, two undercover detectives in New York City's Fourth Precinct who were assigned to investigate various crimes and gang-related cases.
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The Legacy of Malthus
Title: The Legacy of Malthus
Character: Self (Population Institute, 1993) (archive footage)
Released: January 1, 1994
Type: Movie
Discusses Malthus's theories of population and the causes of poverty. As film contrasts the 19th century poor in Scotland with today's poor in India, it takes on the international population "establishment", challenging the entrenched view that overpopulation alone is responsible for poverty and environmental destruction.
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With Murder in Mind
Title: With Murder in Mind
Character: Samuel Carver
Released: May 12, 1992
Type: Movie
A real estate agent is shot while trying to sell a rural farm and tries to bring the shooter to justice.
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Title: In the Heat of the Night
Character: Virgil Tibbs
Released: March 6, 1988
Type: TV
In the Heat of the Night is an American television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name starring Carroll O'Connor as the white police chief William Gillespie, and Howard Rollins as the African-American police detective Virgil Tibbs. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995. Its executive producers were Fred Silverman, Juanita Bartlett and Carroll O'Connor. TGG Direct released the first season of the series to DVD on August 28, 2012.
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Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI
Title: Johnnie Mae Gibson: FBI
Character: T.C. Russell
Released: October 21, 1986
Type: Movie
A police officer is called by F.B.I. to infiltrate into gang of arms smugglers.
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The Children of Times Square
Title: The Children of Times Square
Character: Otis Travis
Released: March 3, 1986
Type: Movie
An alienated teenage boy runs away from home and ventures to New York City where he falls in with a gang of juvenile delinquents working as drug dealers and pickpockets for a shady crime boss.
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Title: Wildside
Released: March 21, 1985
Type: TV
Wildside is an American series aired by ABC from March to April 1985. The series stars William Smith, J. Eddie Peck, Howard Rollins, William Smith, Sandy McPeak, Terry Funk, John D'Aquino, and Meg Ryan.
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He's Fired, She's Hired
Title: He's Fired, She's Hired
Character: Raoul
Released: December 18, 1984
Type: Movie
Advertising executive, Alex Grier, is fired and is unable to find another position, being over-qualified. His wife, Annabelle, with no experience, is hired by the Freddie Fox agency when she uses her husband's résumé to get the job. He remains at home, raising their three children, coaxing his wife while trying to write the "great American novel."
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A Soldier's Story
Title: A Soldier's Story
Character: Captain Davenport
Released: September 14, 1984
Type: Movie
In a rural town in Louisiana, a black Master Sergeant is found shot to death just outside the local Army Base. Military lawyer, Captain Davenport—also a black man—is sent from Washington to conduct an investigation. Facing an uncooperative chain of command and fearful black troops, Davenport must battle with deceit and prejudice in order to find out exactly who really did kill the Master Sergeant.
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The House of Dies Drear
Title: The House of Dies Drear
Character: Walter Small
Released: June 1, 1984
Type: Movie
A young black man and his family move into a home in rural Ohio and discover that during the Civil War it was used by a Dutch immigrant to smuggle runaway slaves to freedom. Soon they begin to suspect that the ghosts of slaves who passed through there are haunting the house.
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A Doctor's Story
Title: A Doctor's Story
Character: Dr. Zack Williams
Released: April 23, 1984
Type: Movie
A physician frustrates his family in his fight to prove that an elderly man is not senile.
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The House of God
Title: The House of God
Character: Chuck Johnston
Released: January 1, 1984
Type: Movie
Comedy about a couple of interns in a hospital named 'The House of God'.
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For Us, the Living: The Story of Medgar Evers
Title: For Us, the Living: The Story of Medgar Evers
Character: Medgar Evers
Released: March 22, 1983
Type: Movie
This film is the true story of Medgar Evers, a successful insurance agent who moves to Jackson, Mississippi to direct the regional headquarters of the NAACP. Fighting segregation and racist politics, Evers becomes a leader in the black community.
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The Member of the Wedding
Title: The Member of the Wedding
Character: Honey Brown
Released: December 20, 1982
Type: Movie
12-year-old tomboy Frankie Addams dreams of going away with her brother and his bride-to-be on their upcoming honeymoon. [Taped live in performance at the James K. Polk Theater, Nashville.]
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The Neighborhood
Title: The Neighborhood
Character: Allen Campbell
Released: April 25, 1982
Type: Movie
A neighborhood in Brooklyn reacts to the first black families moving into the community.
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Ragtime
Title: Ragtime
Character: Coalhouse Walker Jr.
Released: November 20, 1981
Type: Movie
A young black pianist becomes embroiled in the lives of an upper-class white family set among the racial tensions, infidelity, violence, and other nostalgic events in early 1900s New York City.
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Thornwell
Title: Thornwell
Character: Carson
Released: January 28, 1981
Type: Movie
The story of James Thornwell, whose accusation that the U.S. Army used mind control drugs on him to force him to confess to stealing secret documents while stationed in Orleans, France, in 1961, led Congress to award him $625,000 in damages nearly 20 years later.
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Title: Fridays
Released: April 11, 1980
Type: TV
Fridays is the name of ABC's weekly late-night live comedy show, which aired on Friday nights from April 11, 1980 to April 23, 1982.
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My Old Man
Title: My Old Man
Character: Doctor
Released: December 7, 1979
Type: Movie
An unlucky horse trainer, Frank Butler, wins big at the track and buys his 16-year old daughter a horse to salvage their relationship. When Frank is hurt prior to the opening race, Jo must go it alone.
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Title: Roots: The Next Generations
Character: George Haley
Released: February 18, 1979
Type: TV
Roots: The Next Generations is a television miniseries, introduced in 1979, continuing, from 1882 to the 1960s, the fictionalized story of the family of Alex Haley and their life in Henning, Lauderdale County, Tennessee, USA. This sequel to the 1977 miniseries is based on the last seven chapters of Haley's novel entitled Roots: The Saga of an American Family plus additional material by Haley. Roots: The Next Generations was produced with a budget of $16.6 million, nearly three times as large as that of the original.
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The Trial of the Moke
Title: The Trial of the Moke
Character: James Smith
Released: May 3, 1978
Type: Movie
Henry Flipper is the first black West Point graduate. Assigned to serve at Fort Davis in Texas, Flipper becomes the object of a conspiracy by his fellow cadets to rid the base of its only black graduate.
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Title: King
Character: Andrew Young
Released: February 12, 1978
Type: TV
The story of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., stretching from his days as a Southern Baptist minister in the South of the 1950s until his assassination in Memphis in 1968.
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Title: Another World
Released: May 4, 1964
Type: TV
Another World is an American television soap opera that ran on NBC for 35 years from May 4, 1964 to June 25, 1999. Set in the fictional town of Bay City, the show in its early years opens with announcer Bill Wolff intoning its epigram, “We do not live in this world alone, but in a thousand other worlds,” which Phillips said represented the difference between “the world of events we live in, and the world of feelings and dreams that we strive for.” Another World focused less on the conventional drama of domestic life as seen in other soap operas, and more on exotic melodrama between families of different classes and philosophies.