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Calvin Lockhart, whose real name was Bert Cooper, was born and raised in the Bahamas before he moved to New York City to pursue a civil engineering career. However, he soon dropped out to work construction jobs and study acting.
He was discovered by the playwright Ketti Frings who cast him in her play, after which he started to do regular theater work on Broadway. Calvin even appeared opposite Angela Lansbury in the racially themed A Taste of Honey.
Since movie roles were few and far between for Black actors at the time, Calvin moved to Europe for a few years, living in Italy, Germany, and England. When he returned to America, he started getting more roles and eventually went on to be cast by Sidney Poitier in Let’s Do It Again, in which Calvin played the gangster Biggie Smalls.
Calvin went on to have a very successful career in America and Europe, and was the first Black actor to have an artist’s residency with the Royal Shakespeare Company at Stratford. However, towards the end of the Blaxploitation era of films that he became so well known for, Calvin’s career fell into obscurity once again and he returned to the Bahamas.
After a lifetime of movies and excitement, Calvin died from stroke-related complications in a Nassau hospital at the age of 72.
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Source : https://www.distractify.com/p/the-real-biggie-smalls-calvin-lockhart
