Thalmus Rasulala

Tall, handsome, commanding black actor with a resonant voice who began his career in the 1960s as a musical comedy performer on the New York stage under the name Jack Crowder. Rasulala appeared in the off-Broadway musicals "Fly, Blackbird" with Robert Guillaume and "The Fantasticks" and won a Theater World Award for his Broadway debut as Cornelius Hackl in the Pearl Bailey production of "Hello, Dolly!" (1976). He made his film debut in "The Out-of-Towners" (1970) and throughout the 1970s and 80s was featured in the blaxploitation films "Blacula" (1972), "Bucktown" (1975) and the actioners "Cool Breeze" (1972), "Willie Dynamite" (1974), and "New Jack City" (1991). He appeared on the TV series "What's Happening! !" and gave his most notable performances in the TV movie, "The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman" (1974) and as Kunta Kinte's father, Omoro, in the mini-series "Roots" (1977).