Renny Roker

Renny Roker (September 6, 1942 – December 20, 2022) was an American actor, sports and music promoter, and youth sports advocate credited for helping raise the profile of BMX racing in the United States.

In 1978, Roker created the JAG BMX World Championship.

Roker also founded several record labels with his brother Wally Roker in the 1970s. As a record and concert promoter, he worked with such bands and performers as Kiss (helping them achieve platinum album status for Destroyer), Donna Summer, and The Commodores. For a time, he was head of Casablanca Records's Black music division.

His acting career sparked after Nat King Cole introduced Roker to film director Otto Preminger, who cast him in a small part in 1968's Skidoo. Roker went on to a recurring role that year on the TV sitcom Gomer Pyle, a featured turn as a detective on ABC's short-lived comedy Nobody's Perfect (1980), and five episodes as attorney Byron Brown on Hill Street Blues. He also had starring roles in two films from groundbreaking Black film director Horace Jackson: 1974's Tough and Deliver Us From Evil.