Known for his signature deep voice,[1] Caesar was a staple of off-Broadway as a member of the Negro Ensemble Company, and as a voiceover artist for numerous film trailers.

After graduating from George Washington High School in 1952, Caesar enlisted in the United States Navy during the Korean War era,[3] serving as a hospital corpsman for five years,[4] achieving the rank of chief petty officer.

A year later, Caesar became an announcer for and then joined the Negro Ensemble Company in 1970 for productions such as The River Niger, Square Root of the Soul, and The Brownsville Raid.

For many years, he was the voice of the United Negro College Fund's publicity campaign, reciting the iconic slogan "...because a mind is a terrible thing to waste."

In a 1985 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Caesar stated, while crafting the character of Waters, he drew on his experiences with racism in Classical theatre, "I’d studied Shakespeare to death.

[1] Caesar subsequently reprised his role as Waters in Norman Jewison's 1984 film adaptation of Fuller's play, retitled A Soldier's Story.

On the basis of his Soldier's Story success, Caesar was cast in Steven Spielberg's The Color Purple as Old Mister Johnson, the father of Danny Glover's character.

Caesar was working on the Los Angeles set of the 1986 film Tough Guys (with Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas) when he suffered a heart attack and died a short time later.