Isiah Whitlock Jr cause of death update: How did Wire and Goodfellas star die? All on his illness

Isiah Whitlock Jr, doer known for roles in The conducting wire, Goodfellas, Veep, Your honour, and The abode, died on tues. He was 71. His manager told Deadline that Whitlock passed away peacefully in New York.

Isiah Whitlock Jr cause of death update

While Whitlock's manager did not confirm his exact cause of death, he confirmed that the actor battled a short illness. The nature of the health issue has not been revealed yet.

Best remembered by many viewers for portraying the calculating and charismatic State Sen. R. Clayton “Clay” Davis on HBO’s The Wire, Whitlock made his mark across all five seasons of David Simon’s acclaimed drama, first as a recurring player in Seasons 1 through 4 before becoming a main cast member in Season 5.

He would later return to HBO to recur on the political satire Veep as Secretary of Defense Gen. George Maddox, and he also took on a central role in Showtime’s Your Honor, where he played a politician whose world intersected with organized crime.

Whitlock’s most recent television work placed him opposite Uzo Aduba in Netflix’s mystery drama The Residence, in which he appeared as the Chief of Police. The series debuted in March and marked his final TV performance. Earlier in his career, he had steadily built a résumé across three and a half decades of television, beginning with a 1987 guest appearance on CBS’ Cagney & Lacey and going on to amass dozens of credits, including multiple turns across the Law & Order franchise.

Who was Isiah Whitlock Jr?

Born in South Bend, Indiana, Whitlock pursued acting after college by joining the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, setting the stage for a long career in film and television. His work on the big screen was especially defined by his frequent collaborations with Spike Lee, appearing in six of the filmmaker’s projects: 25th Hour (2002), She Hate Me (2004), Red Hook Summer (2012), Chi-Raq (2015), BlacKkKlansman (2018) and Da 5 Bloods (2020). He was most recently seen in Cocaine Bear and is set to be heard as part of the voice cast in Pixar and Disney’s upcoming animated feature Hoppers.

It was during 25th Hour that Whitlock first delivered the expression that would become inseparable from his on-screen persona — the elongated “Sheeeeeit,” his stylized riff on the word “sh*t,” which he once explained in a 2008 interview had been inspired by his uncle Leon. “I did it there, and I did it in She Hate Me,” he said in the interview. “But then, when I got on to The Wire, I saw a couple of opportunities where I could do it, and I did. And they started writing it in.”

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