Austin Stoker is an American actor known for his role as Lt. Ethan Bishop, the police officer

Police officer

A police officer is a warranted employee of a police force...

 in charge of the besieged Precinct 9, Division 13, in John Carpenter

John Carpenter

John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...

's Howard Hawks

Howard Hawks

Howard Winchester Hawks was an American film director, producer and screenwriter of the classic Hollywood era...

-inspired, 1976 film, Assault on Precinct 13

Assault on Precinct 13 (1976 film)

Assault on Precinct 13 is a 1976 American action-thriller film written and directed by John Carpenter. It stars Austin Stoker as a police officer who defends a defunct precinct against an attack by a relentless criminal gang, along with Darwin Joston as a convicted murderer who helps him. Laurie...

. This was one of the few heroic starring roles for an African-American actor in an action film

Action film

Action film is a film genre where one or more heroes is thrust into a series of challenges that require physical feats, extended fights and frenetic chases...

 of the 1970s outside of the blaxploitation

Blaxploitation

Blaxploitation or blacksploitation is a film genre which emerged in the United States circa 1970. It is considered an ethnic sub-genre of the general category of exploitation films. Blaxploitation films were originally made specifically for an urban black audience, although the genre's audience...

 genre.

Stoker was born in Port of Spain

Port of Spain

Port of Spain, also written as Port-of-Spain, is the capital of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago and the country's third-largest municipality, after San Fernando and Chaguanas. The city has a municipal population of 49,031 , a metropolitan population of 128,026 and a transient daily population...

, Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago

Trinidad and Tobago officially the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago is an archipelagic state in the southern Caribbean, lying just off the coast of northeastern Venezuela and south of Grenada in the Lesser Antilles...

. Prior to his role as Lt. Bishop, Stoker appeared in several blaxploitation films, often playing police detectives. Among these films were Abby

Abby (film)

Abby is a 1974 blaxploitation horror film about a woman who is possessed by an African sex spirit. The film starred William H. Marshall, best known for portraying the lead role in Blacula, Terry Carter, and Carol Speed as the title character...

(1974), The Zebra Killer (1975), and Sheba, Baby

Sheba, Baby

The action movie Sheba, Baby is a 1975 blaxploitation film starring Pam Grier as Sheba Shayne. In the film, Sheba returns to her hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, to confront thugs who are trying to intimidate her father into dissolving or handing over his family business...

(1975), in which he played Pam Grier

Pam Grier

Pamela Suzette "Pam" Grier is an American actress. She became famous in the early 1970s, after starring in a string of moderately successful women in prison and blaxploitation films such as 1974's Foxy Brown. Her career was revitalized in 1997 after her appearance in Quentin Tarantino's film...

's love interest. Some of Stoker's other notable acting roles were in the 1973 science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 film Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Battle for the Planet of the Apes is a 1973 science fiction film directed by J. Lee Thompson. It is the fifth and last entry in the original Planet of the Apes series produced by Arthur P...

, the 1974 disaster film

Disaster film

A disaster film is a film genre that has an impending or ongoing disaster as its subject...

 Airport 1975

Airport 1975

Airport 1975 is a 1974 disaster film and the first sequel to the successful 1970 film Airport. It stars Charlton Heston and Karen Black and is directed by Jack Smight....

, and the 1977 television mini-series Roots

Roots (TV miniseries)

Roots is a 1977 American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's fictional novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. Roots received 36 Emmy Award nominations, winning nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings with the finale still...

.

Stoker is known to Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Mystery Science Theater 3000 is an American cult television comedy series created by Joel Hodgson and produced by Best Brains, Inc., that ran from 1988 to 1999....

fans for his role as Dr. Ken Melrose in the 1982 B-movie

B-movie

A B movie is a low-budget commercial motion picture that is not definitively an arthouse or pornographic film. In its original usage, during the Golden Age of Hollywood, the term more precisely identified a film intended for distribution as the less-publicized, bottom half of a double feature....

, Being from Another Planet

Being from Another Planet

Time Walker is a 1982 B-movie. It was directed by Tom Kennedy. This movie was featured in Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode 405, which first aired on July 4, 1992.-Plot:While Douglas McCadden , a California university professor, explores the tomb of the ancient Egyptian...

(also known as Time Walker), in which he appeared with Darwin Joston

Darwin Joston

Francis Darwin Solomon was an American actor known professionally as Darwin Joston...

, his co-star from Assault on Precinct 13.

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