Terry Carter was an actor and Emmy Award-winning producer best known as the original Col. Tigh on Battlestar Galactica and Sgt. Joe Broadhurst on McCloud.
- Died: April 23, 2023 (Who else died on April 23?)
- Details of death: Died in Manhattan at the age of 95.
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Terry Carter’s legacy
Brooklyn-born Terry Carter left college early to pursue a career as an actor, first working the stage and then quickly transitioning to the screen. His first big break came in 1955, when he got the part of Private Sugarman on “The Phil Silvers Show,” aka “Sgt. Bilko” or “You’ll Never Get Rich.” The role made Carter one of the first Black actors on an American TV sitcom, a role he played for 92 episodes.
Carter had small television parts throughout the 1960s, including appearances on “Combat!,” “Dr. Kildare,” and others. From 1965 to 1968, he was also New England’s first Black TV news anchor, on WBZ-TV in Boston. He jumped to the big screen in the 1970s, with parts in the blaxploitation film “Foxy Brown” and playing Officer Tuttle in the family classic “Benji,” among others.
Carter’s biggest claims to fame in this era came by way of the detective show “McCloud,” where he played Sgt. Joe Broadhurst for seven seasons, and his fan-favorite role as Col. Tigh on the original “Battlestar Galactica” series.
Starting in 1975, Carter became a producer, too, launching Meta/4 Productions, Inc. to create educational programming. In 1979, he served as president of the Council for Positive Images, Inc. Carter won an Emmy Award for Best Series for Children and Youth in 1985 for “K*I*D*S,” and was nominated in 1989 for his documentary production on the “American Masters” episode, “A Duke Named Ellington.” He won a CINE Golden Eagle and Golden Antenna award for that same episode.
Tributes to Terry Carter
Full obituary: The New York Times
