'Homicide' And 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Star Andre Braugher Has Died At 61
'Homicide' And 'Brooklyn Nine-Nine' Star Andre Braugher Has Died At 61
Crush your heart when you find out which shelved Warner Bros. film he had a role in!
Emmy-winning actor Andre Braugher, best known for starring as Detective Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street and Captain Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has died at the age of 61. His publicist has confirmed that his death was from lung cancer.
Braugher’s death Monday came only a few months after his diagnosis. The original report of “brief illness” does remain true. His life began in Chicago, born on July 1, 1962, and raised there, he went on to earn a B.A. from Stanford University and an M.F.A. from Juilliard. His career began in 1989, on the big screen as Cpl. Thomas Searles in the Ed Zwick-directed Glory starring Matthew Broderick, Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, and on the small screen in the first two of ABC’s five Kojak TV movies as Detective Winston Blake opposite the returning Telly Savalas. And yes he was in all five. After starring in more television movies including as Jackie Robinson in TNT’s The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson, his first series regular role would become one of his most-known roles, as Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street. His wife, Ami Brabson, recurred as Pembleton’s wife. He would star in the show’s first six seasons, appearing in 98 of the 100 produced episodes before his departure in 1998. He would win his first Emmy for his final season in the role. He would return for the TV movie Homicide: The Movie in 2000.
His TV movie work would continue until 2003, including 1995’s The Tuskegee Airmen, which earned him an Emmy nomination. He would also do several miniseries, including the 2004 Salem’s Lot adaptation, Thief, which won him an Emmy for Outstanding Performance by a Lead Actor in a Mini-Series and earned a Golden Globe Award nomination, and 2008’s The Andromeda Strain. His subsequent series regular roles included Gideon’s Crossing, Hack, Last Resort, and the fondly-remembered but short-lived Men of a Certain Age, also on TNT. Braugher also had a memorable recurring role on Law & Order: SVU as defense attorney Bayard Ellis, reuniting him with Richard Belzer, who had still been playing Detective John Munch 13 seasons into SVU since his transfer from Homicide (SVU premiered the fall after Homicide ended). Belzer died in February at the age of 78.
However, Last Resort’s short life allowed Braugher to land the role of Captain Raymond Holt on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, which has become his most visible and just as beloved as Pembleton due in major part to Homicide’s disappearance from linear television and its not arriving on streaming. Brooklyn Nine-Nine ran for eight total seasons across Fox and NBC from 2013 to 2021, appearing in all 153 episodes with his many castmates, including Andy Samberg, Chelsea Peretti, Melissa Fumero, and Terry Crews, who loved him dearly based on all the tributes that came in upon the news of his passing. For playing Holt, Braugher won two Critics Choice Awards for Best Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and received four Emmy Award nominations.
Braugher also played James Evans in the Good Times portion of the second Live in Front of a Studio Audience special recreating the third season episode "The Politicians". These specials recreated episodes of sitcoms produced by Norman Lear, who died December 5 at the age of 101. After Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Braugher’s next series regular role was as Ri’Chard Lane in the final season of The Good Fight on Paramount+. However, at the time of his death, he had been cast on the Shonda Rhimes-produced Netflix series The Residence, about a fictional murder scandal involving White House staff. Playing White House usher A.B. Wynter, he was considered second-billing to Uzo Aduba’s Cordelia Cupp. Their other co-stars included Susan Kelechi Watson, Jason Lee, Ken Marino, Bronson Pinchot, Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Mary Wiseman. Four out of eight ordered episodes were filmed during the early days of the Writers Guild of America strike before it was suspended, seemingly lasting four weeks before shutdown. While production was set to resume on January 2, how to go forward will be mulled and it is far too early for a final decision.
As far as Braugher’s other non-television films, his roles include Frequency, Poseidon, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, The Mist, and Salt. He voiced Darkseid in Superman/Batman: Apocalypse and had a role in DreamWorks’s Spirit: Untamed. His last released role was as New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet in She Said, telling the story of journalists Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey‘s reporting leading to the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein and the beginning of the #MeToo movement. However, as it turns out, we might never get to see what truly becomes his final overall role. Scoob! Holiday Haunt producer and writer Tony Cervone revealed that Braugher voiced Chef Dave in the film infamously shelved into a tax writeoff by the Discovery regime at Warner Bros., and that Braugher had a soft spot for the long-running franchise, and gave the role “the same dignity he would Shakespeare.”
