Richard Roundtree's career helped reshape perceptions of Black Americans with roles in projects like Shaft and Roots

“I was acutely aware of when I would go into department stores and feel the shadow of being followed. And then I’d be recognized, and all of a sudden, it would turn. I thought, ‘Oh man, there it is.’

I was acutely aware of that turn. If I were not the actor who played John Shaft, I would be trailed to the dressing room, monitored, or stripped. That’s the truth of the matter.” – Richard Roundtree

A 1972 profile of Richard Roundtree, a year after the release of Shaft rocketed him to fame, called him “a 29-year-old former football player turned fashion model-turned-actor.”

Roundtree, who passed away last week at the age of 81, had intended to make football his career. A standout high school football player in his hometown of New Rochelle, New York, he won a scholarship to play at Southern Illinois University. On the field, he said, he became addicted to applause. A concussion on the field, however, prompted him to consider other ways to feed his habit.

So he was quick to accept when Eunice Johnson, the wife of EBONY magazine founder John H. Johnson, offered him the opportunity to model for the magazine’s Fashion Fair series. As the model for Duke hair care products, his face -- if not his name -- soon became familiar in Black households who knew him as "The Duke Man."