Roots
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Roots is an American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The series first aired on ABC in January 1977. Roots received 37 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received...
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International Broadcasts Wiki
Roots is an American television miniseries based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family. The series first aired on ABC in January 1977. Roots received 37 Primetime Emmy Award nominations and won nine. It also won a Golden Globe and a Peabody Award. It received unprecedented Nielsen ratings for the finale, which still holds a record as the third-highest-rated episode for any type of television series, and the second-most watched overall series finale in U.S. television history. It was produced on a budget of $6.6 million.

A sequel, Roots: The Next Generations, first aired in 1979, and a second sequel, Roots: The Gift, a Christmas television film, starring Burton and Louis Gossett Jr., first aired in 1988. A related film, Alex Haley's Queen, is based on the life of Queen Jackson Haley, who was Alex Haley's paternal grandmother.

In 2016, a remake of the original miniseries, with the same name, was commissioned by the History channel and screened by the channel on Memorial Day.

Cast and characters[]

LeVar Burton – young Kunta Kinte

Olivia Cole – Matilda

Louis Gossett Jr. – Fiddler

Ben Vereen – Chicken George Moore

Vic Morrow – Ames

John Amos – older Kunta Kinte

Ji-Tu Cumbuka – Wrestler

Ed Asner – Capt. Davies (credited as Edward Asner)

Lynda Day George – Mrs. Reynolds

Robert Reed – Dr. William Reynolds

Madge Sinclair – Bell Reynolds

Chuck Connors – Tom Moore

Sandy Duncan – Missy Anne Reynolds

Carolyn Jones – Mrs. Moore

Lloyd Bridges – Evan Brent

Georg Stanford Brown – Tom Harvey

Brad Davis – Ol' George Johnson

Lane Binkley – Martha Johnson

Hilly Hicks – Lewis

Lynne Moody – Irene Harvey

Austin Stoker – Virgil

Ralph Waite – Third mate Slater

Cicely Tyson – Binta

Thalmus Rasulala – Omoro

Moses Gunn – Kintango

Hari Rhodes – Brima Cesay

Ernest Lee Thomas – Kailuba

Lorne Greene – John Reynolds

Scatman Crothers – Mingo

George Hamilton – Stephen Bennett

Lillian Randolph – Sister Sara

Roxie Roker – Malizy

Richard Roundtree – Sam Bennett

Thayer David – Harlan

Tanya Boyd – Genelva

John Quade – Sheriff Biggs

Maya Angelou – Nyo Boto

O. J. Simpson – Kadi Touray

Beverly Todd – Older Fanta

Paul Shenar – John Carrington

Gary Collins – Grill

Richard Farnsworth – Trumbull

Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs – Noah

John Schuck – Ordell

Macdonald Carey – Squire James

Ian McShane – Sir Eric Russell

Doug McClure – Jemmy Brent

Burl Ives – Sen. Arthur Justin

Richard McKenzie - Sam Harvey

Sally Kemp - Lila Harvey

William C. Watson - Gardner

Charles Cyphers – Drake

Macon McCalman – Poston

Brion James – Slaver

Tracey Gold – Young Missy Reynolds

Todd Bridges – Bud

Ross Chapman – Sergeant Williams

Grand L. Bush – Captured runaway slave

International broadcast[]