AllMovie

African American actor/director Terry Carter is a unfairly unheralded trailblazer. After growing up in (and growing out of) the tough Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, Carter played a leading role on The Story of Ruby Valentine, radio's first all-black soap opera. He was the first equal-footing black regular on a TV sitcom, portraying Private Sugarman on Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko. He co-starred with Sally Ann Howes in Richard Adler's ground-breaking Broadway musical Kwamina. He was the first black newscaster on a major-market television station (Boston's Westinghouse outlet, WBZ-TV). And he was founder of the first black-owned TV-commercial production firm. While his film credits are comparatively sparse, Terry Carter has built up a solid fan following with his TV work, notably as Sgt. Joe Broadhurst on McCloud (1970-77) and as Tigh on Battlestar Gallactica (1978-79).