Johnny Sekka

Johnny Sekka (born Lamine Secka, 21 July 1934 in Dakar, Senegal) was a pioneering Senegalese actor whose career spanned three continents and more than three decades of film and television. Raised in a Wolof family as the youngest of five children, he survived the early loss of his Gambian father and a turbulent childhood that saw him flee from an aunt’s home in the Gambia to the streets of Bathurst, where he learned to survive by any means. During World II he worked as an interpreter at an American base in Dakar before stowing away to Marseille at age 20, a daring escape that eventually brought him to Paris and later to London in 1952. In the Royal Air Force he earned the nickname “Johnny,” and a chance encounter with pioneering black actor Earl Cameron convinced him to pursue the stage, leading him to train at RADA and begin work as a stagehand at the Royal Court Theatre. His screen debut arrived in Tony Richardson’s 1958 adaptation of Look Back in Anger, and he quickly moved into leading roles such as the Jamaican boyfriend in Flame in the Streets (1961) and the prisoner‑mentor duo in The Big Pride (1961). Throughout the 1960s Sekka became one of the few black actors to appear in mainstream British cinema, appearing in Woman of Straw (1964), Khartoum (1966), and a memorable episode of The Avengers in 1968, while also breaking theatrical barriers by playing a traditionally white role in the West End’s Night of Fame. After relocating to the United States he worked with Sidney Poitier in A Warm December (1972) and Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and later became a familiar face on American television as Ibe in Good Times and as Dr. Benjamin Kyle in the Babylon 5 pilot The Gathering (1993). Recurring health problems and a diagnosis of lung cancer forced his retirement, and he died on 14 September 2006 at his ranch in Agua Dulce, California, leaving behind his wife Cecilia Enger and their son.