Andre Braugher, ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ and ‘Homicide’, Dies at 61

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Andre Braugher, the Emmy Award-winning actor best known for playing a tough cop on television’s “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” and “Homicide: Life on the Road,” died Monday. . He was 61 years old.

His death was confirmed on Tuesday by his longtime publicist Jennifer Allen. He said that Mr. Braugher, who lived in New Jersey, died after a brief illness. He didn’t elaborate.

Mr. Braugher had a role as a tough cop on “Homicide,” a 1990s Baltimore crime thriller that showed the frustrations of policing a city riddled with murders. He spent the last years of his life playing another dangerous police officer in “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” but in a completely different register: The series is a sitcom, and he played his role as a police chief for pictures. He too found Thank you for his portrayal of an openly gay cop who didn’t play role models.

In between, he showed his potential by playing various parts such as Shakespeare’s Henry V, a car salesman named Owen Thoreau Jr. and an executive editor of The New York Times fighting the investigative report that started the #MeToo era.

“I’ve worked with a lot of great actors,” said former Baltimore Sun reporter David Simon, who wrote the book that “Murder” was based on years before him. made the crime drama “The Wire,” said in a post on social media website X, formerly Twitter. “I will never work with anyone better.”

Andre Keith Braugher was born in Chicago on July 1, 1962, and grew up on the West Side of the city. His mother, Sally Braugher, worked for the United States Postal Service. His father, Floyd Braugher, was a heavy equipment operator for the state of Illinois.

“We lived in a ghetto,” he told the New York Times in 2014. “I could pretend to be strong or strong and not square. I haven’t had any trouble. I don’t consider myself to be the most knowledgeable, but I will say that it is very clear that some people want to leave and some don’t. I wanted to leave.”

Mr. Braugher attended St. Ignatius College Prep, a Jesuit Catholic high school in Chicago, and later received a scholarship to Stanford University. His father, who wanted his son to be an engineer, was furious when he decided to work instead.

“Show me some Black people who are making money,” his father told him at the time. “What are you going to do, run and travel the country?”

After graduating from Stanford with a degree in mathematics, Mr. Braugher holds a Masters of Fine Arts from the Juilliard School.

One of his first professional roles was in “Glory,” a 1989 Oscar-winning film about Black soldiers fighting for the Union during the American Civil War. Its co-stars included Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.

“It is better for me not to work than to do a part that I will be ashamed of,” said Mr. Braugher in the Times that year. “I can tell now that my mother will be proud of me when she sees me in this role.”

Mr. Braugher, who insisted on living in New Jersey even though he often worked in California, would go on to appear in several other films. Among the highlights are “Get on the Bus” (1996), about a group of Black men who traveled to Washington for the Million Man March, and “City of Angels” (1998), about an angel (Nicolas Cage) has fallen in love. and a doctor (Meg Ryan).

One of the last film projects of Mr. Braugher’s “She Said” (2022), a drama about the efforts of New York Times reporters to document the sexual assault of movie mogul Harvey Weinstein. Mr. Braugher played Dean Baquet, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief at the time.

He has also performed Shakespearean roles at the New York Shakespeare Festival and elsewhere. In 2014, he told The Times that he was saving the story “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” for later in life.

“I haven’t read it yet because I want to see a Shakespeare play I don’t know what will happen,” he said.

Said Ms. Allen, Mr. Braugher is survived by his wife, actress Ami Brabson; his sons are Michael, Isaiah and John Wesley; his brother, Charles Jennings; and his mother. His father died in 2011.

His most recent project, “The Residence,” a story about an assassin in the White House, was scheduled to resume shooting in January after it was shut down because of the Writers Guild of America, which the Last Day entertainment venue. reported. It is not clear whether its status will be reinstated or eliminated.

Mr. Braugher was best known for his work on popular television, which included the lead role of an eccentric doctor in the ABC drama “Gideon’s Crossing” (2000-2001) and car dealer Owen Thoreau Jr. . on the TNT series “Men. a Special Year” (2009-2011). He also appeared in the sixth and final season of the Paramount + legal drama “The Good Fight” (2017-2022).

On “Murder,” a police procedural that ran from 1993 to 1998, Mr. Braugher to Frank Pembleton, a Baltimore homicide detective. A special role earned him an Emmy Award in 1998, along with two Television Critics Association Awards in 1997 and 1998 for best actor in a drama series.

In 2006, he won an Emmy for outstanding performance by a lead actor in a series for his outstanding role as a lead actor in “Thief,” an FX miniseries about crime in New Orleans. after Hurricane Katrina.

And on “Brooklyn Nine-Nine,” a comedy show that aired from 2013 to 2021, Mr. Braugher to Capt. Raymond Holt, a military commander. He received four Emmy nominations and won two Critics Choice Awards for best 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 off about this, you know what I’m saying, and be challenged about it,” he said. “But I think they’re both workplace jokes. I mean it takes 20 years to come full circle, but I think it’s in the same place.

Rebecca Carballo correct report.

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