The Story of American Actor Lance Reddick who died at 60

American Actor Lance Reddick, well known for his role as Cedric Daniels on “The Wire” and for his work in the “John Wick” franchise, died on Friday at age 60.

The actor’s representative, Mia Hansen said Reddick passed away suddenly on Friday morning “from natural causes.”

“Lance will be greatly missed,” she is quoted by CNN.

Reddick, an actor whose captivating presence often landed him in roles that required intensity and gravitas, began his career in the ’90s, with credits in shows like “New York Undercover” and “The West Wing.”

As a teenager growing up in Baltimore, he had intended to become a musician, he once told The Guardian. He fell into acting as a means of supporting his young family and in hopes of laying a base for a music career.

He began earning roles in regional theatre and at 29, he applied— and was accepted — to Yale University to study drama, eventually graduating.

In New York, he first auditioned for “Wire” creator David Simon for his project “The Corner,” an HBO miniseries that came two years before Simon’s “The Wire.”

While Reddick was not in that project, he did go on to book his first regular role on HBO’s “Oz,” where he played an undercover detective posing as an inmate.

Eventually, Simon cast him as Narcotics Unit Lt. Daniels, a breakout role for Reddick.

Although “The Wire” was never a huge hit, its acclaim among critics and within the industry was sky-high.

“I thought it would be a hit but I didn’t anticipate that it would take so long to catch on, or that it would become this phenomenon,” Reddick told the Guardian. “Or that the industry would so ignore it. That really floored me, because I knew how good we were; we all did.”

His “Wire” co-star Wendall Pierce remembered Reddick as a “man of great strength and grace” in a tribute on Friday.

“As talented a musician as he was an actor,” Pierce wrote. “The epitome of class. A sudden unexpected sharp painful grief for our artistic family. An unimaginable suffering for his personal family and loved ones. Godspeed my friend. You made your mark here.”

Reddick added numerous credits to his name after “The Wire,” with a memorable part on “Lost” and regular roles in the Fox sci-fi series “Fringe,” Amazon’s “Bosch” and, more recently, Netflix’s version of “Resident Evil.”

Reddick told the Los Angeles Times in 2019 that his “Lost” character was supposed to become a series regular but plans changed when he booked a regular part on “Fringe.” Though, he said, even his short run on one of the biggest shows on television at the time introduced him to a new kind of fame.

“That was the first time fans were really weird. I was living in New York at the time, and it seemed like everybody was stopping me to talk about ‘Lost.’ I went from small, niche notoriety to being completely recognizable,” he said.

You can read the rest of the story on CNN.