Andre Braugher, the actor who won an Emmy for playing stoic police officers on the TV shows “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Homicide: Life on the Street,” died Monday. He is 61 years old.
His death was confirmed by his longtime publicist Jennifer Allen on Tuesday. Mr. who lived in New Jersey. Braugher, he said, died after a brief illness. She didn’t elaborate.
Mr. Starring Braugher, it chronicles the frustrations of policing a city plagued by murders. He spent the last years of his life as another serious cop on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” but in a very different register: The series was a sitcom, and he played his role as the police chief for laughs. He too Earned congratulations For his portrayal of an openly gay cop who doesn’t play the stereotype.
In between, Shakespeare’s Henry V, Owen Thoreau Jr., a car salesman and managing editor of The New York Times, showed his range by battling investigative reporting that would usher in the #MeToo era.
“I’ve worked with so many wonderful actors,” said former Baltimore Sun journalist David Simon, who wrote the book “Murder” years before he made the seminal crime drama “The Wire.” said in a post On social media. “I’ll never work with someone better.”
Andre Keith Braugher was born in Chicago on July 1, 1962, and grew up on the city’s West Side. His mother, Sally, worked for the United States Postal Service. His father, Floyd, was a heavy equipment operator in Illinois.
“We lived in a ghetto,” he told The New York Times in 2014. “I could have pretended to be tough or tough and not square. I didn’t get into trouble. I didn’t consider myself particularly smart, but it was clear that some people wanted out and some people wanted out. I wanted out.
Mr. Prager attended St. Ignatius College Prep, a prestigious Jesuit Catholic high school in Chicago, and later received a scholarship to Stanford University. His father, who wanted him to become an engineer, became angry when he gravitated to acting instead.
“Show me black actors who are making a living,” he recalled his father saying. “What are you going to do, juggle and tour the country?”
After earning a master’s degree in mathematics from Stanford, Mr. Prager earned a master’s degree in fine arts from The Juilliard School.
One of his first professional acting roles was in the 1989 Oscar-winning film “Glory,” about black soldiers fighting for the Union during the American Civil War. Its star-studded cast includes Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.
“I’d rather not work than do a part I’m ashamed of,” said Mr. Braugher told the Times that year. “I can tell you right now that my mother would be proud of me when she sees me in this role.”
Although often working in California, Mr. insisted on living in New Jersey. Braugher went on to star in several films. “Get on the Bus” (1996), about black men traveling to Washington for the Million Man March, and “City of Angels” (1998), about an angel (Nicolas Cage) who falls in love with a doctor (Mc Ryan).
Mr. One of Prager’s last film projects is “She Said” (2022), a drama about New York Times reporters’ efforts to document the sexual abuse of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Mr. Dean Pocket who was the managing editor of the newspaper at that time.
He performed Shakespearean roles at the New York Shakespeare Festival and elsewhere. In 2014, he told The Times that he was saving the play “Pericles, Prince of Tyre” for later in life.
“I like to see a Shakespeare play where I don’t know what’s going on because I’ve never read it,” he said.
Mr. Ms. Allen said Braugher is survived by his wife, the actress Amy Brabson; his sons Michael, Isaiah and John Wesley; his brother, Charles Jennings; and his mother. His father died in 2011.
His most recent project, “The Residence,” a mini-series about an assassination in the White House, was scheduled to resume filming in January after the Writers Guild of America strike shut down entertainment site Deadline. reported.
Mr. Braugher is best known for his roles in popular television series, including the lead role of car salesman Owen Thoreau Jr. in the ABC drama Gideon’s Crossing (2000-1) and the TNT series Men. A Certain Age” (2009-11). He also starred in the sixth and final season of the Paramount+ legal drama “The Good Fight” (2017–22).
In “Homicide,” which ran from 1993 to 1998, he played Baltimore homicide detective Frank Pembleton. Played by Prager. It earned him an Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series in 1998, along with Television Critics Association Awards in 1997 and 1998.
In 2006, he won an Emmy Award for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Miniseries for his portrayal of a mob boss in the FX mini-series “Thif,” about crime in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
In the comedy show “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”, which aired from 2013 to 2021, Mr. Braugher played Captain Raymond Holt. He received four Emmy nominations and won two Critics’ Choice Awards for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
After the first few episodes of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” aired, he told the New York Times that he saw similarities between that show and “Murder.”
“I don’t want to go out on a limb about it, you know what I mean, be challenged about it,” he said. “But I think they’re both workplace jokes. It took 20 years to come full circle in essence, but I think they’re in the same place.
Rebecca Carballo Contributed report.
