Robert Hooks

Robert Hooks (born Bobby Dean Hooks on April 18, 1937) is an American actor, producer, and activist whose career spans over six decades, beginning with his Broadway debut in A Raisin in the Sun in 1960. Born in Foggy Bottom, Washington, D.C., he was the youngest of five children to Mae Bertha Ward, a seamstress, and Edward Hooks, a railroad worker who died in a work accident when Robert was two years old. After moving to Philadelphia in 1954, he attended West Philadelphia High School where he fell in love with drama, joining the school’s drama club and performing Shakespeare and Beckett before forgoing a scholarship to Temple University to pursue professional theater. His early stage work included replacing Louis Gossett Jr. in A Raisin in the Sun, appearing in A Taste of Honey, and originating the role of Clay in Amiri Baraka’s Dutchman, which helped cement his reputation as a pioneering Black actor. In the 1960s and 1970s he broke television barriers as the first African‑American lead on the series N.Y.P.D., hosted the public affairs program Like It Is, and earned a Tony nomination for his performance in the musical Hallelujah, Baby!. Beyond acting, Hooks co‑founded the Negro Ensemble Company with Douglas Turner Ward and Gerald Krone, a landmark institution that launched countless Black artists, and he established the D.C. Black Repertory Company, which created America’s first prison‑based arts program at Lorton Prison. His activism extended to arts education through the Group Theatre Workshop, Arts in Action, and board service with the Black Academy of Arts and Letters. Over his prolific career he appeared in films such as Hurry Sundown, Trouble Man, and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, while also earning an Emmy for the PBS special Voices of Our People. Hooks’ contributions have been honored with a Lifetime Achievement NAACP Image Award, induction into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame, and multiple “Robert Hooks Day” proclamations in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.