Andre Braugher, the Emmy-winning actor who would grasp gritty drama for seven seasons on “Homicide: Life on The Street” and fashionable comedy for eight on “Brooklyn 99,” died Monday at 61.
Braugher died after a short sickness, his publicist Jennifer Allen advised The Associated Press. No additional particulars got.
The Chicago-born actor would set up himself within the function of Det. Frank Pembleton, the lead function on “Homicide: Life on the Street,” a darkish police drama primarily based on a ebook by David Simon, who would go on to create “The Wire.” The present, which centered on the murder unit of the Baltimore Police Department, ran for seven seasons on NBC, and would win vital acclaim with Braugher as its dramatic middle and breakout star.
He would win his first profession Emmy for the function, taking the trophy for lead actor in a drama sequence in 1998.
He feared he could be typecast after spending many of the Nineties because the brooding detective.
“If I do it too long then I’ll stop really searching and probing inside my own work,″ he told the AP in 1998. ”That’s only a nice hazard. I believe I’m going to flee that entice, and get a possibility to do some work that might be more difficult for me.”
That wouldn’t show to be an issue. He would go on to play a really completely different form of cop on a really completely different form of present, shifting to comedy as Capt. Ray Holt on the Andy Samberg-starring “Brooklyn Nine-Nine.” It would run for eight seasons from 2013 to 2021 on Fox and NBC.
Though he’d dipped his toe into comedy within the TNT dramedy “Men of a Certain Age,” “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” nonetheless represented a significant shift for Braugher, who was identified for appearing in darkish and heavy dramas.
“I just felt as though it was an opportunity to do something strikingly different from the rest of my career,” Braugher advised the AP in 2019. “I prefer it as a result of it simply merely opens up my thoughts and forces me to assume another way. So I believe I’ve change into far more form of supple as an actor, and extra open to the unimaginable variety of potentialities of methods to play a scene.”
He could be nominated for 4 Emmys through the run.
Braugher’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” co-star Terry Crews was amongst these paying tribute to him Monday night time.
“Can’t believe you’re gone so soon,” Crews mentioned on Instagram. I’m honored to have identified you, laughed with you, labored with you and shared 8 superb years watching your irreplaceable expertise. This hurts.” He added, “You showed me what a life well-lived looked like.”
Braugher most not too long ago starred in “She Said,” the 2022 movie concerning the New York Times journalists who broke the story of Harvey Weinstein’s years of sexually abusing girls. Braugher performed Times editor Dean Baquet.
Born and raised in Chicago, Braugher graduated from Stanford and obtained a grasp of nice arts diploma from Juilliard.
He had his breakthrough function in 1989’s “Glory,” starring alongside Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, who gained an Oscar for the movie about an all-Black Army regiment through the the Civil War.
Braugher performed the bookish, frightened union corporal Thomas Searles within the movie.
“I conceived that character as heroic, but I got a lot of scripts after that where I’m constantly crying,” he advised the AP in 1993.
Despite the half, he advised the AP in 2019 that earlier than “Homicide” he struggled to seek out work in a Hollywood the place roles for African American actors had been “few and far between, Period.”
Braugher gained his second Emmy for lead actor in a miniseries or film for the 2006 restricted sequence “Thief” on FX. Braugher could be nominated for 11 Emmys total.
His different movie credit included “Primal Fear” and “Get on the Bus,” and his other TV credits included “Hack,” “Gideon’s Crossing” and “The Good Fight.”
He additionally acted ceaselessly on the stage, typically doing Shakespeare. He gained an Obie Award for enjoying the title function in “Henry V” on the New York Shakespeare Festival, the place he additionally appeared in “Measure for Measure,” “Twelfth Night” and “As You Like It.”
Braugher was married for greater than 30 years to his “Homicide” co-star Ami Brabson. He can also be survived by sons Michael, Isaiah and John Wesley, his brother Charles Jennings and his mom Sally Braugher.
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