Isiah Whitlock Jr, who was known for his memorable acting roles on The Wire and Veep, has died at the age of 71, according to his manager. <\/p>\n
“It is with tremendous sadness that I share the passing of my dear friend and client Isiah Whitlock Jr,” manager Brian Liebman wrote on Instagram. <\/p>\n
Whitlock, who also featured in Goodfellas and The Chappelle Show, was a longtime collaborator with director Spike Lee, who also shared a heartfelt tribute to him.<\/p>\n
“Today I Learned Of The Passing Of My Dear Beloved Brother ISIAH WHITLOCK. GOD BLESS,” Lee wrote, alongside a photo of the two men shaking hands.<\/p>\n
“If you knew him – you loved him. A brilliant actor and even better person,” Mr Liebman wrote. <\/p>\n
“May his memory forever be a blessing. Our hearts are so broken. He will be very, very missed.”<\/p>\n
In statements to Hollywood news outlets, he added that Whitlock passed away in New York after a short illness.<\/p>\n
On The Wire, Whitlock played a corrupt politician, and was known for his profane catchphrase, which Whitlock himself had developed. <\/p>\n
The phrase was based off his uncle, he said in a 2008 interview, and he had also said it in the same intonation in other films before debuting on HBO’s The Wire. <\/p>\n
He was recognised throughout his career for his elongated version of a common curse word.<\/p>\n
“I was in, I think, Grand Central Station and far away I heard someone say it and they’d be kind of smiling” he said in the interview. “I’m glad people enjoy it.”<\/p>\n
On Veep, he played a comical version of the US secretary of defense, who runs for office against the main character, played by Julia Louis-Dreyfus. <\/p>\n
Whitlock featured in six films by Spike Lee, including 25th Hour, She Hate Me, Red Hook Summer, Chi-Raq , BlacKkKlansman and Da 5 Bloods.<\/p>\n
The native of South Bend, Indiana, also had roles in films Pieces of April, Enchanted and Cars 3 and Lightyear, as well as TV roles in the Law and Order franchise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Isiah Whitlock Jr, who was known for his memorable acting roles on The Wire and Veep, has died…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":378567,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75],"class_list":["post-378566","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378566","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378566"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378566\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/378567"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378566"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378566"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378566"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}