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Howard Rollins
Birth name	Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr.
Born	17 October 1950(1950-10-17) Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
Died	8 December 1996 (aged 46) New York, New York, U.S.

Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. (October 17, 1950 – December 8, 1996) was an American actor.

Rollins was born in Baltimore, Maryland where he studied theater at Towson State College nearby. In the late 1960s he played the role of "Slick" in the Maryland Public Television Series "Our Street," the nation's first black soap opera. He received his start in acting in a production of Of Mice and Men directed by his friend Steve Yeager. Many years later, he would star in Yeager's film On the Block.

Rollins was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Daytime Drama Series for his role on Another World. Rollins was also nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the Dino De Laurentiis/Miloš Forman motion picture, Ragtime.

In 1984, Rollins starred in director Norman Jewison's film, A Soldier's Story which led to his role as Virgil Tibbs on the In the Heat of the Night television series based on Jewison's acclaimed film In the Heat of the Night. In 1993, he spent about a month in jail for driving under the influence and reckless driving. Because of continued legal problems, Rollins was ultimately dropped from In the Heat of the Night and was replaced by Carl Weathers. Rollins was invited back as a guest star on several episodes in the seventh season, but further legal problems led to his being totally banned from the county where the series was filmed.

In the last years of his life, Rollins worked hard to address his drug and alcohol problems and began to rebuild his career. He appeared in the TV shows New York Undercover and Remember WENN, in the PBS film Harambee, and in the theatrical film Drunks.

Rollins died in 1996 after complications from AIDS-related lymphoma and was interred in the Woodlawn Cemetery in his native Baltimore. He had been diagnosed with the condition approximately six weeks earlier.^[1][2] An unveiling of a wax statue of Rollins took place at the Senator Theater in Baltimore on October 25, 2006. The statue is now at Baltimore's Great Blacks in Wax Museum.^[3]

Film

• Ragtime (1981)
• A Soldier's Story"

Television

• In the Heat of the Night (1988-1994)

• Howard Rollins at the Internet Movie Database