Roscoe Orman

Roscoe Hunter Orman (born June 11, 1944) is an American actor, writer, artist and child advocate, best known for playing Gordon Robinson, one of the central human characters on Sesame Street. Early life and career While a student at New York City's High School of Art and Design, Orman made his theatrical debut in the 1962 topical revue "If We Grow Up." He was an early member of the Free Southern Theater in New Orleans for two years in the mid-1960s and a founding member of Robert Macbeth's New Lafayette Theatre in Harlem, NY, where he both acted in and directed several plays by NLT's playwright-in-residence, Ed Bullins. His many other stage appearances have included roles in "Julius Caesar" and "Coriolanus" at Joseph Papp's Public Theater, the Broadway production of August Wilson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play "Fences", Manhattan Theatre Club's stagings of Richard Wesley's "The Sirens", "The Last Street Play", and "The Talented Tenth", and Matt Robinson's one-man play The Confessions of Stepin Fetchit at the American Place Theatre. Orman is the recipient of two Audelco Theatre Awards and a five-time nominee. He made his feature film debut in the title role of Universal Studios' 1974 drama Willie Dynamite and has since appeared in F/X, Striking Distance, New Jersey Drive, Sesame Street Presents: Follow That Bird, Twilight's Last Gleaming, The Adventures of Elmo in Grouchland, Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life, Holiday Rush, and You Can't Take My Daughter. His television credits include work on All My Children, Kojak, Sanford and Son, Cosby, Sex and the City, The Wire, Law & Order, and Law & Order: SVU. He appeared in the Garry Trudeau/Amazon streaming production Alpha House and the HBO mini-series The Night Of. Orman joined the Sesame Street cast in 1974, becoming the third actor to play Gordon (after Matt Robinson, 1969–72, and Hal Miller, 1972–74).