(Los Angeles) Andre Braugher, the Emmy Award-winning actor best known for his roles in the series Homicide: Life on The Street and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, died Monday at age 61.
Braugher’s publicist, Jennifer Allen, told the Associated Press that the actor died after a short illness.
The Chicago-born actor had his breakthrough role in 1989’s Glory, alongside Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, which won an Oscar for the film about an all-black military regiment during the Civil War.
Despite this role, he told the Associated Press in 2019 that he struggled to find work in the Hollywood industry where roles for African-American actors were “few and few and far between, period c ‘is all “.
But he broke out with the role of Frank Pembleton, whom he played for seven seasons on Homicide: Life on The Street, a serious crime drama on NBC based on a book by David Simon, who would go on to create The Wire.
He won his first career Emmy Award for this role, winning the trophy for lead actor in a drama series in 1998.
His second came in the lead role in a miniseries or movie category for the 2006 FX miniseries Thief. Braugher has received a total of 11 Emmy Award nominations.
Years later, he played a very different cop character in a very different type of series, moving into comedy as Captain Ray Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine with Andy Samberg. The series will run for eight seasons from 2013 to 2021 on the Fox and NBC networks.
Although he had moved into comedy with the series Men of a Certain Age, Brooklyn Nine-Nine nevertheless represented a major change for Braugher, known for starring in dark and heavy dramas.
“I just felt like it was an opportunity to do something remarkably different from the rest of my career,” Braugher told the Associated Press. I like it because it just opens my mind and forces me to think in a different way. So I think I’ve become much more flexible as an actor, and more open to the incredible number of possibilities of how to play a scene. » He was nominated for four Emmys during this adventure.
Braugher was married for over 30 years to Ami Brabson, his co-star in Homicide: Life on The Street. They had three sons.
His death was first reported by the website Deadline Hollywood.
