ROLLINS, 46, OSCAR-NOMINATED, TV, STAGE ACTOR.Byline: The New York Times Howard Rollins, an actor who was nominated for an Academy Award in 1981 for his work in the film ``Ragtime'' and was written out of the hit television series ``In the Heat of the Night'' in 1993 because of drug problems, died Sunday at St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan. He was 46. A hospital spokesman, Sandra Salisbury, said Rollins was admitted Saturday but that his family had asked that no information be given out on the cause of death. Larry Bloustein, a spokesman for the William Morris Agency Founded in 1898, the William Morris Agency is the largest diversified talent and literary agency in the world, with offices in New York City, Beverly Hills, Nashville, Miami, London, and Shanghai. in Beverly Hills, which represented Rollins, also declined to provide any information about the death. The New York City New York City: see New York, city. New York City City (pop., 2000: 8,008,278), southeastern New York, at the mouth of the Hudson River. The largest city in the U.S. Medical Examiner's Office said the case had not been reported for inquiry, suggesting that Rollins' death was not unexpected or suspicious. ``In The Heat of the Night,'' in which Rollins played an African-American chief of detectives, Virgil Tibbs, working with a white Southern sheriff, played by Carroll O'Connor, was based on the 1967 movie with Rod Steiger and Sidney Poitier. The series was broadcast by NBC NBC in full National Broadcasting Co. Major U.S. commercial broadcasting company. It was formed in 1926 by RCA Corp., General Electric Co. (GE), and Westinghouse and was the first U.S. company to operate a broadcast network. from 1988 to 1992, when it was picked up by CBS (Cell Broadcast Service) See cell broadcast. . Rollins was replaced in the script by Carl Weathers in 1993, and the series ran another year. Reruns are being shown on cable television by TNT TNT: see trinitrotoluene. TNT in full trinitrotoluene Pale yellow, solid organic compound made by adding nitrate (−NO2) groups to toluene. . Rollins also played major parts in the 1984 film ``A Soldier's Story'' and in ``Ragtime ragtime: see jazz. ragtime U.S. popular music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries distinguished by its heavily syncopated rhythm. Ragtime found its characteristic expression in formally structured piano compositions, the accented left-hand ,'' in which his portrait of Coalhouse Walker, a young revolutionary, brought him an Oscar nomination. Rollins was born in Baltimore on Oct. 17, 1950. He grew interested in acting while attending Towson State College in Maryland and in 1974 moved to New York City, where he made his home. He had several scrapes with the law involving drug abuse. In 1988, he pleaded guilty to cocaine possession in Louisiana. In 1993, he spent a month in jail for reckless driving, and in 1992 he pleaded guilty to driving under the influence of a tranquilizer tranquilizer, drug whose action calms the central nervous system, decreasing emotional agitation without impairing alertness. Tranquilizing drugs differ from hypnotic drugs such as barbiturates in that they do not act on the brain's cortical areas but rather on its . He was sentenced to two days in jail, fined $1,000, and lost his driver's license. CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Howard Rollins Had history of drug problems |
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