Father, grandfather, husband and singer, and the one Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. calls “dad”, Cuba Gooding Sr., was found dead in his car in Los Angeles on Thursday afternoon, according to multiple law enforcement sources.
This happened just one week before his 72nd birthday next Thursday on April 27.
Gooding’s death was first reported by TMZ. Law enforcement sources confirmed Gooding Sr.’s body was found unresponsive in a car parked on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills, California.
Gooding’s body was found in his Jaguar before 1:10 p.m. in the 22100 block of Ventura Boulevard after witnesses called 911 to report a man they thought was passed out in the driver’s seat of a Jaguar. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
According to the Los Angeles County coroner’s office, Gooding was found unresponsive. Some news outlets report drug paraphernalia and cans and bottles of beer and liquor were found in the car, but that has yet to be confirmed.
There were no obvious signs of trauma, the coroner’s office said. The cause of death is still under investigation.
“Appears to be either natural or an accident,” Ed Winter with the coroner’s office said. “He could have suffered a heart attack or whatever, and we won’t know until a full autopsy is done and we get all the results.”
Winter said Gooding parked his car on Ventura at around 3:30 a.m. Thursday.
“He was seen alive by a citizen around 10:30,” Winter said.
Cuba Gooding Sr. is the father of Oscar-winning actor Cuba Gooding Jr. He was part of the 1970s Grammy-nominated soul group “The Main Ingredient.” Their most famous song was the hit “Everybody Plays the Fool.” Here’s a video of the group on Soul Train in 1972 (see below):
Born in New York, New York, Cuba Gooding Sr. was a son of Dudley MacDonald Gooding and his wife Addie Alston. Dudley Gooding was a native of Barbados who fled the island in 1936 to Cuba, and met and married a woman there. When Addie was murdered because of their affiliation with Pan Africanist leader Marcus Garvey, Dudley Gooding promised his wife on her deathbed that he would name his first son Cuba. His father died when Cuba Sr. was only eleven years old.
Gooding and his wife, singer Shirley Gooding (née Sullivan) had four children: actors Cuba Gooding Jr., Omar Gooding, April Gooding and musician Tommy Gooding. Gooding Sr. later became a minor actor himself. Gooding Sr. separated from his wife in 1974. In 1995, the Goodings remarried, some 21 years after they separated and were still married to this day.
Rest in peace, Cuba.
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