Sylvester, Harold, Jr., 1949-
Dates
- Existence: 1949-
Biographical Statement
Harold Sylvester, actor, writer, and film producer from New Orleans, Louisiana.
Harold Sylvester was born in New Orleans on February 10, 1949. He attended St. Augustine High School where he stood out as a basketball player and a good student. As a 6’5 junior, he helped lead the St. Augustine team to the state championship. Sylvester was on the team that played the Secret Game—an unadvertised game between all-black St. Augustine and all-white Jesuit High School in 1965.
He was recruited by several colleges to play basketball, but ultimately, he chose Tulane University where he began his studies in 1968. He would be the first African American to be admitted on an athletic scholarship. While in college, he married Kathleen Dunn and together they would have two children. He began college with an interest in psychology, but became interested in acting after taking a theater class and decided to pursue it as a full-time career.
After he graduated from Tulane in 1972, Sylvester got involved in the Free Southern Theater—an outgrowth of the black theater movement. He starred in their productions of A Raisin in the Sun, The Slave, We are the Suns, Edifying, and When Opportunity Scratches, Itch It. He also participated in projects filmed in Louisiana, such as The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and Sounder, Part II.
Sylvester moved to Los Angeles in 1975, but he returned to New Orleans to perform in the Dashiki Theater Production of A Streetcar Named Desire, which stood out for it’s all African-American cast.
Over the next four decades of his career, Harold Sylvester became a familiar face to film and television audiences with roles in seventeen feature films and hundreds of series. His film roles included, A Hero Ain’t Nothin’ But a Sandwich, An Officer and a Gentleman, Innerspace, Uncommon Valor, Fast Break, and Corrina, Corrina. He was a series regular on Today’s FBI, Mary, Shaky Ground, and Walking Tall and had recurring roles on Hill Street Blues, Days of Our Lives and Married…With Children. He also had roles in other television series, such as Doogie Howser M.D., A Different World, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Roc, Cold Case, and NYPD Blue.
Sylvester also worked as a writer and film producer. He wrote for television series such as City of Angels, which was known for its pre-dominantly African-American cast, and NYPD Blue. He also wrote the screenplay for Passing Glory (a movie based on the Secret Game between St. Augustine and Jesuit), Fast Girls, and The Muhammad Ali Story. He made his directorial debut for the film NOLA—a movie set in post-Katrina New Orleans. Sylvester won an Emmy as the writer and executive producer for the TNT documentary, On Hallowed Ground. He is also the president of Blue Bayou Production Company.
Today, Sylvester mainly focuses on writing and producing, although he still does acting projects. He resides in Los Angeles, California.