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Terry Carter, a trailblazer and actor best known for playing Colonel Tigh in the original Battlestar Galactica, has passed away. He was 95.
His son confirmed to The New York Times that Carter passed away Tuesday (April 23) at his home in New York City.
Carter’s decades-long career in television began in 1955 when he starred as Private “Sugie” Sugarman in The Phil Silvers Show until 1959.
The actor spoke on his experience starring on that show in 2018, telling the Times, “Well, I am the last living survivor of The Phil Silvers Show. But I’m reluctant to take too much credit for being the only Black man on the show. I was only a cog in the wheel. I slew the foe, but I was just a ham like everybody else. It was a wonderful bunch.”
He later continued working in the theater, producing an Off Broadway production of A Streetcar Named Desire.
His television career took him across genres, with memorable appearances in Foxy Brown, The Jeffersons, and Battlestar Galactica. He also starred in McCloud, appearing in 42 episodes as Sergeant Joe Broadhurst, a role he later reprised for the 1989 TV movie The Return of Sam McCloud.
Carter also worked as a news anchor in Boston between 1965-1968, becoming New England’s first Black news anchor.
According to Deadline, Carter also served on the Board of Governors of the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. He later served on the Documentary Committee and the Foreign Films Committee for the Oscars.
After years of creating educational documentaries with his own production company, Carter also narrated and directed the Emmy-nominated documentary A Duke Named Ellington about the legendary jazz musician as part of PBS’ American Masters series.
Carter later told the Times that he “went through about 70 hours of film footage” while working on the 1988 documentary, “over 90 percent of which has never been seen before.”
“Going through this material was like discovering plutonium when you’re searching for a common metal,” he said.
According to Carter’s IMDb page, his final acting credit was in the 2012 thriller Hamilton: In the Interest of the Nation.
Carter is survived by his wife Etaferhu Zenebe-DeCoste, two kids, his step-daughter, and his granddaughter.
