Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — Otis Young, the first black actor to co-star in a television western series — "The Outcasts" in the late 1960s — has died. He was 69.
Young, who later became an ordained minister and a community college professor, died Oct. 12 of a stroke in Los Angeles.
As an actor, Young’s best-known movie role was as a career sailor transporting a prisoner to the brig with Jack Nicholson in the 1973 movie "The Last Detail."
But he was a relative unknown when he landed a co-starring role in "The Outcasts," an hour-long western that ran on ABC for one season, 1968-69. The series co-starred Don Murray as an ex-Confederate officer and former slave owner who lost everything during the war and teams up with Young’s character, an ex-slave who became a bounty hunter.
Born in Providence, R.I., Young was one of 14 children. He joined the Marine Corps at 17, and after serving in the Korean War enrolled in acting classes at New York University on the GI Bill.
He appeared in the off-Broadway production of "In a Garden" at the Penthouse Theatre in New York in 1956. He studied at the Neighborhood Playhouse School of Drama in New York city in 1960 and appeared in numerous theater productions in New York and Los Angeles.
He is survived by his wife, Barbara; and children El Mahdi Young, Jemal Lucien Young, Lovelady Young and Saudia Young.
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