Actor Lance Reddick, police chief on 'The Wire,' dead at age 60
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 [March 18, 2023]
By Danielle Broadway
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -Actor Lance Reddick, best known for his
commanding presence as a no-nonsense police chief on the acclaimed
television drama "The Wire" and for his supporting work in the "John
Wick" action-film series, died on Friday at age 60, his publicist said.
Reddick died suddenly on Friday morning of natural causes, according to
a statement issued by the publicist, Mia Hansen. No further details
about the circumstances of his death were immediately disclosed.
Celebrity news website TMZ.com, citing law enforcement sources, reported
the performer had been found dead at his home in the Studio City
district of Los Angeles at around 9:30 a.m.
His death came just days before the planned March 24 release of the
fourth installment in the "John Wick" franchise, in which Reddick
reprised his role as a hotel manager named Charon, an ally of the title
character, a professional assassin forced out of retirement, played by
Keanu Reeves.
Reddick scored his first major screen role as police chief Cedric
Daniels on the HBO crime drama "The Wire," set in his hometown of
Baltimore. The show, which aired for five seasons beginning in 2002, was
widely hailed as one of television's greatest dramas for its gritty
portrait of urban struggle as told from the perspective of police,
narcotics dealers and the people caught between them.
Tall, with a shaved head and a flair for portraying low-key but imposing
authority figures, Reddick later played a similar role as a big-city
police chief on the Los Angeles-based cop drama "Bosch," a show from the
streaming service Amazon Prime.
He also appeared in a pair of shows co-created by J.J. Abrams, starting
with season four of the ABC series "Lost". That character was soon
killed off, making way for Reddick to join the cast of "Fringe," a Fox
network series in which he played the head of an FBI unit investigating
the paranormal.
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Actor Lance Reddick arrives at the 46th
NAACP Image Awards in Pasadena, California February 6, 2015.
REUTERS/Jonathan Alcorn
 Other television credits include the
HBO prison series, "Oz" as undercover police detective Johnny Basil,
the Emmy-winning FX anthology series "American Horror Story" playing
a Voodoo master named Papa Legba, and the forthcoming Disney+ series
"Percy Jackson and the Olympians" as the Greek god Zeus.
Motion picture work beyond "John Wick" included appearances in such
thrillers as "Angel has Fallen," "Monster Party" and "Godzilla vs.
Kong." He was also known to video game enthusiasts as the voice of
the character Commander Zavala in the "Destiny" brand shooter
franchise.
A classically trained pianist, Reddick attended the Peabody
Preparatory Institute to study music, worked in the Walden School's
summer music theory and composition program, and eventually obtained
a bachelor's degree in classical composition from the University of
Rochester's Eastman School of Music.
He released a jazz album, "Contemplations and Remembrances" in 2007.
A photograph of Reddick posted on his Instagram account the day
before his death showed the smiling actor, seated on a sofa in his
living room surrounded by four pet dogs.
Fellow actor Wendell Pierce paid tribute his "Wire" co-star on
Twitter, calling Reddick a "man of great strength and grace" and the
"epitome of class".
"You made your mark here. RIP," Pierce said.
Reddick is survived by his wife, Stephanie, whom he married in 2011,
and the couple's son and daughter.
(Reporting by Danielle Broadway in Los Angeles; Editing by Steve
Gorman, Sandra Maler and Lincoln Feast)
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