Obscure Black C-Listers: John Lafayette

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Obscure Black C-Listers: John Lafayette

Thembi Ford 17 June 2009 3 Comments

If it weren’t for his pronounced overbite, John Lafayette would just blur into the crowd for me. I’ve always had a thing for men with overbites, so I only recently put his career together and realized that he’s old enough to be my father - nevermind his salt & pepper hair and tendency to play dad-types. His powerful voice and presence have made him perfect for bit parts in procedural dramas like The Closer, Cold Case, and Without A Trace, usually playing a concerned parent sick of the police giving him the run-around. Lafayette has over eighty television and movie credits to his name after thirty years as an actor, so he constantly pops up on sitcoms, dramas, and horror movies. You name it – from Cagney & Lacey to Bones this dude works regularly with next to zero name recognition. His most prominent characters were James Jackson on the Annie Potts/Lorraine Toussaint series Any Day Now, a short run on Young & The Restless, and a recurring role as a paramedic on Hill Street Blues. It was difficult to find much more information on a bit-player with such a common name even if he is a fixture on network television, so all I can add is that he had a theater background before appearing on television. John Lafayette is truly an obscure black c-lister!

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3 Comments »

ASmith said:

I LOVED Any Day Now

# 17 June 2009 at 12:47 pm

invisiblewoman said:

Who dat is?

# 18 June 2009 at 3:19 am

Thembi (author) said:

You KNOW him IW…think massive overbite and flappin’ gums to match…

# 18 June 2009 at 6:41 am

So what do you think? Please be respectful to other readers!

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THROWBACK POST!!

Police Sketches of Black Dudes

By Thembi Ford on September 26, 2007

Police sketch artist drawings of black people are notoriously poor and rarely look like anyone in particular. I’m convinced that when asked to describe the suspect, witnesses just describe the last black male they saw, even if they last saw a black male on television. So I did a little Thembi-style experiment by going online and digging up dozens of sketches of black suspects to see just who the strong arm of the law is looking for.

Posted in Not Racist Cuz It's True., Our Shame, What the Eff?, Yipes! | 21 Responses

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