After auditioning and landing a spot touring with the Leonard DePaur Infantry Chorus (of which he was a civilian member from 1945 to 1947), he officially quit CCNY. Peters often joked that he "grew up" in the chorus, because his vocal range changed from baritone to bass baritone during his years with them. DePaur subsequently gave him the lead in the Chorus' popular rendition of "John Henry" (which became a repertoire mainstay of Peters in later years, singing the work on one of his two solo albums which was produced by United Artists Records in the 1960s). At the suggestion of his agent, he adopted a more memorable stage name, reversing the order of the names of childhood friend Peter Brock. After auditioning and landing a stage role in the touring company of
Porgy and Bess in 1949 on
contralto Etta Moten Barnett's suggestion, he went on tour with the opera, where
William Warfield commended his performances and requested that Peters be his understudy as Porgy. It was during this time while he was touring in Europe with the opera that
Paul Robeson saw him in his career-defining role as "Crown" and purportedly declared that he was "a young Paul Robeson". in the episode "Pompey" on
Daniel Boone (1964) Peters made his film debut in
Carmen Jones in 1954, but began to make a name for himself in such films as
To Kill a Mockingbird and
The L-Shaped Room. He received a
Tony nomination for his starring stint in
Broadway's Lost in the Stars. Peters sang background vocals on the 1956 hit "
Day-O" by
Harry Belafonte, as well as on Belafonte's 1957 hit, "
Mama Look at Bubu". He led the chorus at recording sessions for Belafonte's
iconic 1956 album
Calypso. He also sang on the song "Where" from
Randy Weston's 1959 album
Live at the Five Spot and shared vocal duties with Martha Flowers on Weston's album of the following year,
Uhuru Afrika. During this time, Peters and Belafonte became close friends, sharing similar political views and approaches to their careers. In 1963, he played Matthew Robinson in
Heavens Above!, a British satirical-comedy film starring
Peter Sellers, directed by John and
Roy Boulting. He played a supporting role as the gangster Rodriguez in the 1964 film,
The Pawnbroker, one of the first confirmed
homosexual characters in an American film. He played “Jesse” in a 1972 episode of
Gunsmoke. He was a special guest star in the third season of
The Streets of San Francisco, playing the character "Jacob" in the episode called "Jacob's Boy" (1974). In the film
Abe Lincoln, Freedom Fighter (1978), Peters plays Henry, a freed black slave who is falsely accused of robbery but, defended by Abraham Lincoln, is found not guilty due to the fact he has a damaged hand and could not have committed the crime. In
To Kill a Mockingbird, Peters plays
Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white girl, a crime Atticus Finch shows he could not have committed because his left hand and arm were damaged. In 1970 Peters portrayed the voice of African-American boxer
Jack Johnson in
Bill Cayton's film of the same name, and it is in this role that he can be heard at the end of
Miles Davis' soundtrack album,
Jack Johnson, saying: "I'm Jack Johnson.
Heavyweight champion of the world. I'm black. They never let me forget it. I'm black, all right. I'll never let them forget it." Between 1981 and 1996, Peters voiced
Darth Vader in the radio adaptations of the first three
Star Wars films for
National Public Radio. He also played the role of a Colonial prosecutor trying to make a murder case against Starbuck in an episode of the original
Battlestar Galactica. Peters appeared in the films
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home and
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country as
Fleet Admiral Cartwright of
Starfleet Command. Peters portrayed Joseph Sisko, father of
Deep Space Nine's commanding officer,
Benjamin Sisko, on
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. In 1993, he was a member of the jury at the
43rd Berlin International Film Festival. In early 2005, six months before his death, Peters guest-starred in an episode of
JAG during its final season, "Bridging the Gulf", season 10 episode 15. Peters worked with
Charlton Heston on several theater productions in the 1940s and 1950s. The two became friends and subsequently worked together on several films, including
Major Dundee,
Soylent Green, and
Two-Minute Warning. He voiced
Lucius Fox in several episodes of
Batman: The Animated Series and had a guest role as Morris Grant/Soul Power in the
Static Shock episode "Blast from the Past" (2003). He was involved in many community projects, including being chairman and a co-founder of the
Dance Theatre of Harlem. ==Recognition==