Austin Stoker

Austin Stoker was a Trinidadian-American actor whose career began on the stage. His birthplace was Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, and he took a role in House of Flowers, Truman Capote's 1954 Broadway production. Earlier in his career, he worked in blaxploitation films, often as police detectives, including Combat Cops (1974) and Abby (1974), plus Sheba, Baby (1975). His best-known part was Lt. Ethan Bishop, the officer commanding a besieged police station in John Carpenter's Howard Hawks-inspired Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). The role was a rare leading action part for a black actor in the 1970s outside blaxploitation. He also acted in Horror High (1973) and Battle for the Planet of the Apes, plus the 1977 television miniseries Roots. Mystery Science Theater 3000 viewers knew him as Dr. Ken Melrose in Time Walker, a 1982 B-movie, and he acted there with Darwin Joston, who had appeared with him in Assault on Precinct 13. He died in 2022.