Emmy-winning actor Andre Braugher who starred in ‘Homicide’ and ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine,’ passes away aged 61

Andre Braugher, the Emmy-winning actor who would master gritty drama for seven seasons on Homicide: Life on The Street and modern comedy for eight on Brooklyn 99, passed away on Monday aged 61. Braugher passed away after a brief illness, his publicist Jennifer Allen told media sources. No further details were given.

The Chicago-born actor would establish himself in the role of Det. Frank Pembleton, the lead role in Homicide: Life on the Street, a dark police drama based on a book by David Simon, who would go on to create The Wire. The show, which focused on the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, ran for seven seasons and would win critical acclaim with Braugher as its dramatic centre and breakout star. He would win his first career Emmy for the role, taking the trophy for lead actor in a drama series in 1998.

He feared he would be typecast after spending most of the 1990s as the brooding detective. “If I do it too long then I’ll stop really searching and probing inside my own work,″ he said in an interview in 1998. "That’s just a great danger. I think I’m going to escape that trap and get an opportunity to do some work that will be more challenging for me."

Also read: Jennifer Aniston recalls talking to Matthew Perry before his passing, says, ‘He was happy…’

That would not prove to be a problem. He would go on to play a very different kind of cop on a very different kind of show, shifting to comedy as Capt. Ray Holt on the Andy Samberg-starring Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It would run for eight seasons from 2013 to 2021.

Though he'd dipped his toe into comedy in the dramedy Men of a Certain Age, Brooklyn Nine-Nine still represented a major shift for Braugher, who was known for acting in dark and heavy dramas. “I just felt as though it was an opportunity to do something strikingly different from the rest of my career,” Braugher told the media in 2019. “I like it because it just simply opens up my mind and forces me to think in a different way. So I think I’ve become much more sort of supple as an actor, and more open to the incredible number of possibilities of how to play a scene." He would be nominated for four Emmys during the run.

Braugher's Brooklyn Nine-Nine co-star Terry Crews was among those paying tribute to him Monday night. “Can’t believe you’re gone so soon,” Crews said on Instagram. I’m honoured to have known you, laughed with you, worked with you and shared 8 glorious years watching your irreplaceable talent. This hurts." He added, “You showed me what a life well-lived looked like.”

Braugher most recently starred in She Said, the 2022 film about the New York Times journalists who broke the story of Harvey Weinstein's years of sexually abusing women. Braugher played Times editor Dean Baquet.

Born and raised in Chicago, Braugher graduated from Stanford and got a master of fine arts degree from Juilliard. He had his breakthrough role in 1989’s Glory, starring alongside Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington, who won an Oscar for the film about an all-Black Army regiment during the Civil War.

Braugher played the bookish, frightened Union corporal Thomas Searles in the film. “I conceived that character as heroic, but I got a lot of scripts after that where I’m constantly crying,” he was quoted as saying in 1993.

Also read: Actor Ryan O’Neal passes away at the age of 82

Braugher won his second Emmy for lead actor in a miniseries or movie for the 2006 limited series Thief on FX. Braugher would be nominated for 11 Emmys overall. His other film credits included Primal Fear and Get on the Bus, and his other TV credits included Hack, Gideon's Crossing and The Good Fight.

He also acted frequently on the stage, often doing Shakespeare. He won an Obie Award for playing the title role in Henry V at the New York Shakespeare Festival, where he also appeared in Measure for Measure, Twelfth Night and As You Like It.

Braugher was married for more than 30 years to his Homicide co-star Ami Brabson. He is also survived by sons Michael, Isaiah and John Wesley, his brother Charles Jennings and his mother Sally Braugher.