Thalmus Rasulala

Biography: Commanding African American actor Thalmus Rasulala launched his film career in such blaxploitationers of the 1960s and 1970s as Cool Breeze, Blacula, Bucktown and Friday Foster. He was prominently cast in the Emmy-winning made-for-TV feature The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, played Omro in the 1977 miniseries Roots, and was one of the nine stars of the 1981 multipart drama The Sophisticated Gents. Rasulala's series-TV manifest included the occasional role of Mabel King's ex-husband on What's Happening!! (1976-79), and a substantial run on the daytime drama One Life to Live. In the 1991 TV movie Above the Law, Rasulala played a character named Crowder, which happened to be his given name. Thalmus Rasulala died of heart failure and leukemia at the age of 51; his last film, Mom and Dad Save the World (1992), was released posthumously.