The Wire, John Wick star Lance Reddick dead at 60

Lance Reddick, a character actor who specialised in intense, icy and possibly sinister authority figures on TV and film, including The Wire, Bosch and the John Wick franchise, has died. He was 60.

Reddick died suddenly on Friday morning, his publicist Mia Hansen said in a statement, attributing his death to natural causes. His death was first reported by celebrity website TMZ.com.

Reddick was often put in a suit or a crisp uniform during his career, playing tall taciturn and elegant men of distinction. He was best known for his role as straight-laced Lt. Cedric Daniels on the hit HBO series The Wire, where his character was agonisingly trapped in the messy politics of the Baltimore police department.

“I’m an artist at heart. I feel that I’m very good at what I do. When I went to drama school, I knew I was at least as talented as other students, but because I was a Black man and I wasn’t pretty, I knew I would have to work my butt off to be the best that I would be, and to be noticed,” he told the Los Angeles Times in 2009.

Reddick also starred on the Fox series Fringe as a special agent Phillip Broyles, the smartly dressed Matthew Abaddon on Lost and played the multi-skilled Continental Hotel concierge Charon in the John Wick movies, including the fourth in the series opening this month

It was on season four of Oz, playing a doomed undercover officer sent to prison who becomes an addict, that Reddick had a career breakthrough.

“I was never interested in television. I always saw it as a means to an end. Like so many actors, I was only interested in doing theatre and film. But Oz changed television. It was the beginning of HBO’s reign on quality, edgy, artistic stuff. Stuff that harkens back to great cinema of the 60s and 70s,” he told The Associated Press in 2011.

“When the opportunity for Oz came up, I jumped. And when I read the pilot for The Wire, as a guy that never wanted to be on television, I realised I had to be on this show.”

Reddick attended the prestigious Eastman School of Music, where he studied classical composition, and he played piano. His first album, the jazzy Contemplations and Remembrances, came out in 2011.

Reddick had a recurring role as Jeffrey Tetazoo, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, on CBS’ Intelligence. On American Horror Story: Coven, he portrayed Papa Legba, the go-between between humanity and the spirit world. And in Bosch, he played Chief Irvin Irving.

Reddick is survived by his wife, Stephanie Reddick, and children, Yvonne Nicole Reddick and Christopher Reddick.