Carl Lee (actor)
Carl Lee was an American actor. His father was actor/professional boxer Canada Lee.
Biography
Lee, billed as Canada Lee Jr at age 25, played a student at Tuskegee Institute in an April 1952 episode of American Inventory. His father starred in the episode as George Washington Carver. Lee made his first film appearance in Human Desire. Lee played a heroin dealer, the central role in the Obie Award-winning play The Connection. He appeared in the film version released in 1961.Lee appeared in films such as A Man Called Adam opposite Sammy Davis Jr. and Cicely Tyson, and the blaxploitation film Superfly. He also appeared on television in such shows as The Defenders, Mannix, and Good Times in which he portrayed Willona Woods' ex-husband Ray, who makes sexual advances towards the character Thelma Evans.
While filming The Connection, Lee fell in love with its director, Shirley Clarke. Their relationship lasted almost 30 years until Lee's death.
Lee suffered a heroin addiction that caused him to contract AIDS from a dirty hypodermic needle. He died from a heroin overdose in 1986. In a 2000 interview, filmmaker James Toback stated "In the sort of hip world of New York, Carl Lee was the hip-black-actor icon. He was for hip people what Sidney Poitier was for mainstream people."
Acting filmography
;FilmsHuman Desire as John Thurston The Connection as CowboyThe Cool World as PriestA Man Called Adam Portrait of Jason The Landlord as CarlPound as ThiefWerewolves on Wheels Super Fly as EddieGordon's War as Bee BishopExposed as Duke;TelevisionThe Nurses as Lonnie HillThe Defenders as Philip DunningCaribe as HainesMannix as GingerBarbary Coast as CurrierSerpico as CarothersGood Times as Ray WoodsKeeping On as Davis