Calvin Lockhart, the Bahamian-born actor who appeared in a number of 1970s black movie mega hits, was Denzel Washington before there was a Denzel Washington.

Known for his good looks and imposing onscreen presence, Lockhart’s persona was even an inspiration for one of the best hip-hop aliases of all time.

Lockhart, who played inner-city hustler Biggie Smalls in the 1975 comedy “Let’s Do It Again,” died March 29 in Nassau from complications of a stroke. He was 72.

Lockhart, born Bert Cooper, was a “virile male figure who epitomized the perseverance of blacks in Hollywood and the everyday citizens who flocked to the theaters to watch them in the blaxpoitation era," said William Jelani Cobb, an assistant professor of history at Spelman College.

“In that era, you had actors playing people who were strong, who were showing vitality and a refusal to surrender," Cobb told BlackAmericaWeb.com. “They were usually doing so as they were pitted against white bureaucratic figures. There was a certain sort of self-determination that you don’t see in the theaters now.”

The strength and determination Lockhart portrayed onscreen was surely developed early on. The youngest of eight children, Lockhart moved to New York as a teenager to study engineering but soon found his calling in the theater. He made ends meet by operating a carpentry business in Queens and driving a taxi.

He had a short run on Broadway, playing opposite Angela Lansbury, before relocating to Italy where he formed his own theater company. His acting pursuits would take him to Germany and England, where he frequently appeared on British television.

Lockhart eventually found success on the big screen, garnering the lead male role in the 1967 film, “Joanna,” which tackled interracial dating, an extremely taboo subject in those days.

Sidney Poitier, who directed Lockhart in “Let’s Do It Again” and “Uptown Saturday Night,” said Lockhart’s performance in “Joanna” was a role that "marked him as a very gifted young man."  Mark Anthony Neal, assistant professor of black popular culture at Duke University, agreed, calling Lockhart Poitier’s “heir apparent.”

“He didn’t have the range in terms of his acting, but he had a certain kind of ability to do drama and comedy,” Neal told BlackAmericaWeb.com, adding that Lockhart’s ability to play the urban gangsters may have altered the course of his career.

“He was limited by the blaxpoitation movies,” Neal said of Lockhart, who played a disc jockey-turned sleuth in the 1972 film, “Melinda,” and hustler Silky Slim in “Uptown Saturday Night.”

“In a lot of ways,” Neal said, “he was better than the films he was in. He was typecast and never got the opportunities to pursue other types of roles.”

Lockhart played in more than a dozen movies, including the Ossie Davis-directed “Cotton Comes to Harlem,” in which he played the immoral preacher, Rev. Deke O’Malley. In the 1980s, he had a recurring role on the primetime soap opera “Dynasty” playing a love interest of Diahann Carroll’s character, Dominique Deveraux. One of his last big-studio movies was 1988’s “Coming to America,” where he had a supporting role of Colonel Izzi.

But it is Lockhart’s “Let’s Do It Again” character that may have played a role in a younger generation of fans giving him his props. The gangster nemesis of Poitier and Bill Cosby’s do-good characters, Lockhart’s Biggie Smalls was the new-school mobster moving in on John Amos’ old school Kansas City Mack. The ultra-cool Biggie Smalls character became a model that many followed, from everyday inner-city hustlers to an internationally-known hip-hop artist.

While Amos’ Kansas City Mack was just as conniving as Lockhart’s Biggie Smalls, it was the Smalls character -- and Lockhart’s portrayal -- that articulated the new, more refined gangster, Neal said, a significant reason why Christopher Wallace, also known as Notorious B.I.G., chose to take the moniker.

“Biggie actually got the name from someone in Harlem who had the name,” Neal told BlackAmericaWeb.com.

“Part of what made (Lockhart’s) character appealing was the tension between he and Kansas City Mack. Biggie represented the next generation of gangsters, doing things different than how they were done in previous ways,” said Neal, whose 2002 book, “Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic," explored how the 1970s films like “Let’s Do It Again” and “A Piece of the Action” depicted the black middle class’ exodus out of the ‘hood.

Bahamian Prime Minister Perry Christie Friday expressed sadness at the death of Lockhart, who was buried in Nassau over the weekend.

"Although his acting career was of relatively short duration, Calvin's cinematic charisma and talents won him high praise from critics and audiences alike all around the world," Christie told the Nassau Guardian newspaper.

In 1979, Lockhart met Jennifer L. Miles in New York. Two years later, the couple had a son, Julien, yet didn’t marry until 25 years later. Lockhart filmed his last movie, “Rain,” in the Bahamas earlier this year. The movie has yet to be released.

Lockhart is survived by his mother, Minerva Cooper; his wife, Jennifer Miles-Lockhart; sons Michael Lockhart and Julien Lockhart Miles; brothers Carney, Eric and Phillip Cooper; sisters, Melba and Delores.