Gossett won the award for An Officer And A Gentleman, and also got an Emmy for Roots. More recent prominent roles for the Broadway star and civil rights activist were in The Color Purple and Watchmen.

Leslie Van Houten was denied parole more than 20 times — including five reversals from California's governor's office — over the brutal murders of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca in 1969.

Van Houten, now in her 70s, is serving a life sentence for helping Charles Manson and other followers in the 1969 killings of Leno LaBianca, a grocer in Los Angeles, and his wife, Rosemary.