The family of The Five Heartbeats actor Michael Wright are “grieving an enormous and deeply personal loss” following his death aged 70.<\/p>\n
Wright’s death was confirmed by his wife, Susan Wright, in a statement on Instagram.<\/p>\n
The statement began: “It is with profound sadness and an unimaginable heaviness in my heart that I share the passing of my beloved husband, Michael Wright.<\/p>\n
“Michael was a husband, a father (Manon Wright, Byron Barr, Brittney Briggs, Brianna Barr, Sir Barr, a grandfather (Yoko), loved one, a friend, and an extraordinary artist whose work touched generations.<\/p>\n
“Many knew and loved him through The Five Heartbeats, The Wanderers, V, The Principal, Streamers, and the many other characters he brought to life throughout his remarkable career.”<\/p>\n
It continued: “His talent, presence, and contributions to film and television will live on, but to those of us who loved him personally, he was so much more than the roles the world knew him for.”<\/p>\n
The statement said Wright’s family were “grieving an enormous and deeply personal loss”.<\/p>\n
The family said they understood how much the actor had “meant to so many people and were grateful for the love, prayers, memories, and condolences already being shared”.<\/p>\n
However, they asked to be given “privacy and grace to grieve during this incredibly difficult time”.<\/p>\n
They said they would share additional information regarding Wright’s “life, legacy and how we intend to honour and celebrate him” in the coming days.<\/p>\n
The statement, which was signed by his “loving wife and family”, concluded: “Michael, your work will live forever, but your love will live even longer in the hearts of those who knew you best. Rest peacefully, my love. You will be missed beyond words.”<\/p>\n
Born in New York City in 1956, Wright appeared in more than 50 films and television shows throughout his career.<\/p>\n
His breakout role came as Clinton, the leader of the Del Bombers gang, in Philip Kaufman’s 1979 coming-of-age drama The Wanderers.<\/p>\n
The film was adapted from Richard Price’s novel of the same name and followed rival teenage gangs in 1960s New York.<\/p>\n
Wright went on to play singer Eddie King Jr in Robert Townsend’s 1991 film The Five Heartbeats.><\/p>\n
The cult favourite followed a fictional Motown group but was loosely inspired by the lives of artists including The Temptations, James Brown, and Sam Cooke.<\/p>\n
Wright also appeared in Robert Altman’s 1983 war drama Streamers and Leon Ichaso’s 1995 crime drama Sugar Hill, in which he starred opposite Wesley Snipes.<\/p>\n
On the small screen, some of Wright’s best-known roles included playing Elias Taylor in V and V: The Series, Omar White in Oz, and Lazarus Prime in Black Lightning.<\/p>\n
Source: Press Association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of The Five Heartbeats actor Michael Wright are “grieving an enormous and deeply personal loss” following…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601363,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[321,93,61,60],"class_list":["post-601362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=601362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601363"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}