'm back," says actor Yaphet I(ottq 'and I want to worko After spending' most of the'90s onT'V"s "Homicide," I(otto spent the past seven years founding anartists' rcfreat in lhe Philipim.</p><p> He's now in a coned5r, Tlidess hection' which opened Friday; it cosrs Jenqr McCarfty and Larry the Cable Guy and hes l(orttor excited abort dingagAin.I was on th b€arh wh€n I gOt the scripfi,- sa5aKo@ ufrovas borninNery York and hac fte my'al blood of f-ameroon in his EiG. a rd it and I hery I was leaviqtown' It woldnt be " e firS tire a script bas rlpnged lfofio's lifu He ms living in the pro.ieas in the Sodr Bronx, forg- iq a chalengiog life as aprarficingJer and activist for racid jrrsice, urten he got fre sctpt rur f 964's.anding hrt a Man " *a@ jaz great Abbey Iincoln 'I had iust tni*eA doing a recod and was th odairman of Bronx CORE, [the Con- gress of Racial Equalit5rl- Alot of poli- tics and civil rights w€re nlnnfug trrcugh my nea4- sayr l(ffiq wto won't giye his age but sa5rs he's nowterenearthe 7O years soreSbb silgs claim lreb.'I hadto cbose betreen politics and ac+in8." Ifu{to chme adin& andved onto a se, ries of fir$s: He was lhe first black men to kill a strlijs rnan ia a 6a!11 Honprood mwie, in 197{Is -The liberdbn of LB.</p><p> Jones'; driqg frlmin& Kdo first heada new term frrom director William $ffler rchen discnssirg a pivobl scene. 'Sfler didn't want ne to cry.</p><p> He sai4 "Too rnany,t\frican-American men have done frirt onfilm -..</p><p> You are not suffer- ing ' Tbat"was the first time Id heard the term 'Affican-American '" I(otto says. ffis groundbreaking co4tinued when he became the first black man to play a James Bond ardrvillain fn 1973's'Live and I-ctDieJ.</p><p> Later, diredorlndn lGrsh- neq rrho directed l(ofto to an Emmy nom- indion in the 1977 TV moyie'Raid on En- tebbe,'offered him the Iando Calrissian role in l980's'Ttrc Empire Strikes Back" Heturned it down, dmosing instead to workwith Robert Redford in *Brubaker." Redford's $mdane Institute iaspircd I(oilto to shrt his retrreat in the Phitippines, whidhastaken lp much of his time since 'Homicide"" Bld NewYorkis still home. 'Whenthcymovethe Stage Deli away ftom Carnegie Hall, tften NewYork will no longerbe myhone;" Kotto says. *And they ain't movin' eifl-ts of tbem-" tl Yaphct f,o[to is backonscreen in'ffiess ffictin'lfisnricdcfrtmsh l!15'f.
