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Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Actor in Spike Lee Films, Is Killed in Shooting Thomas Jefferson Byrd, Actor in Spike Lee Films, Dies at 70
(about 16 hours later)
Thomas Jefferson Byrd, a Tony-nominated actor also known for roles in various Spike Lee films, was found shot to death on an Atlanta street, the authorities said Sunday. Thomas Jefferson Byrd, a film, television and stage actor who was a favorite of the director Spike Lee and received a Tony Award nomination for his one Broadway appearance, in a 2003 production of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” was killed early Saturday in a shooting in Atlanta. He was 70.
Mr. Byrd, 70, was found “unresponsive” by Atlanta police officers, who responded to a call about an injured person at 1:45 a.m. Saturday, Anthony Grant, a spokesman for the police, said. Mr. Byrd was pronounced dead of “multiple gunshot wounds to the back,” Mr. Grant said. Anthony Grant, a spokesman for the Atlanta police, said on Sunday that Mr. Byrd was pronounced dead of multiple gunshot wounds to the back after the police responded to a call about 1:45 a.m. on Saturday.
Craig Wyckoff, Mr. Byrd’s friend and former representative, said on Sunday that he had spoken with a “circle of friends” who said that Mr. Byrd had gotten into an argument with someone at a store and that “that person must have followed him home.” The police said the case was under investigation and declined to confirm that account. Craig Wyckoff, a friend and former representative of Mr. Byrd’s, said he had spoken with a “circle of friends,” who told him that Mr. Byrd had gotten into an argument with someone at a store and that “that person must have followed him home.” The police said the case was under investigation and declined to confirm that account.
In a series of posts to Instagram, Mr. Lee said he was “So Sad to Announce The Tragic Murder Of Our Beloved Brother” and highlighted Mr. Byrd’s roles in films like “Clockers” (1995), “Chi-Raq” (2015) and “Bamboozled” (2000). In a series of posts to Instagram, Mr. Lee called Mr. Byrd “our beloved brother” and highlighted his roles in his movies. Mr. Byrd was in Mr. Lee’s “Clockers” (1995), “Girl 6” (1996), “Get on the Bus” (1996), “He Got Game” (1998), “Bamboozled” (2000), “Red Hook Summer” (2012), “Da Sweet Blood of Jesus” (2014) and “Chi-Raq” (2015).
“Rest In Peace Brother Byrd,” Mr. Lee wrote. He also had a regular role in Mr. Lee’s recent TV series, “She’s Gotta Have It,” based on his 1986 film of the same name.
Mr. Byrd also appeared in the 1996 film “Set It Off” and was nominated for a 2003 Tony Award for his role in a Broadway revival of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom,” by August Wilson. (A television adaptation is coming to Netflix, starring Viola Davis and Chadwick Boseman, who died in August.) Mr. Byrd was a regular on Off Broadway and regional stages, appearing frequently in August Wilson plays, among them “The Piano Lesson” at San Jose Repertory Theater in California in 2001, “Seven Guitars” with the St. Louis Black Repertory Company in 2002 and “Gem of the Ocean” at the Actors Theater of Louisville in Kentucky in 2006.
“Loved working with you Byrd,” Ms. Davis wrote in a tweet on Sunday. “What a fine actor you were. So sorry your life ended this way.” He was a late addition to the Broadway cast of Mr. Wilson’s “Ma Rainey,” taking over the role of Toledo, the reflective, philosophizing piano player in the title character’s band. The cast was headed by Whoopi Goldberg in the title role and Charles S. Dutton as the trumpeter Levee. Though the production, which ran for 68 performances, drew mixed reviews, Mr. Byrd and the actors playing two other musicians, Stephen McKinley Henderson and Carl Gordon, drew widespread praise. Mr. Byrd was nominated for the Tony for best featured actor in a play.
A review of “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” in Variety in 2003 hailed Mr. Byrd as “a singular pleasure in the role of Toledo, the verbally fastidious piano player who dispenses nuggets of African history and homegrown philosophy.” “Thomas Jefferson Byrd is a singular pleasure in the role of Toledo, the verbally fastidious piano player who dispenses nuggets of African history and homegrown philosophy,” Charles Isherwood wrote in Variety. “The prim set of Byrd’s mouth and the expressive gymnastics of his eyebrows gently accent Toledo’s more pompous asides, but he brings the right measure of natural gravity to Toledo’s more painfully authentic ruminations.”
“The prim set of Byrd’s mouth and the expressive gymnastics of his eyebrows gently accent Toledo’s more pompous asides,” the reviewer, Charles Isherwood, wrote, “but he brings the right measure of natural gravity to Toledo’s more painfully authentic ruminations.” Mr. Byrd played a broad range of roles. In Mr. Lee’s “Get on the Bus,” about a group of men headed to the Million Man March in Washington, he was a father who was literally chained to his son, a petty criminal. In Kwame Kwei-Armah’s “Elmina’s Kitchen” at Center Stage in Baltimore in 2005, he portrayed, as The Washington Post put it, “a slimeball in dreadlocks who becomes a role model” for a teenage boy. In Alice Childress’s “Trouble in Mind,” at Arena Stage in Washington in 2011, his character delivered a moving monologue about witnessing a lynching.
Mr. Wyckoff said that in recent years, Mr. Byrd had started teaching acting as he tried to “get his personal life together” after a set of personal struggles. In a video interview during that production, Mr. Byrd said that what interested him were roles that broke away from the stereotypes Black actors often found themselves playing and conveyed the depth and complexity of the Black experience.
Nasser Metcalfe, an actor and a friend of Mr. Byrd’s, said he had been “struck by his humility.” At a showing of “Clockers” at a theater in Atlanta before the two met, both actors were in the audience. “We as African-American people take serious issue with how we’re portrayed,” he said, “because that big screen is very powerful.”
It wasn’t a screening, Mr. Metcalfe said, “just the 8 o’clock showing at the local multiplex.” “You see this guy, and he’s a minimal person; he’s minimal,” he said, describing those stereotypical roles.
“I take serious issue with that,” he added, “because of how I’m being represented, how my children will be represented, how my grandparents were represented.”
According to a biographical sketch on the Internet Movie Data Base website, Mr. Byrd was born on June 15, 1950, in Griffin, Ga., south of Atlanta. He received a bachelor’s degree at Morris Brown College in Atlanta and a master of fine arts degree in dance from the California Institute of the Arts.
Mr. Byrd’s other credits included “Mama Flora’s Family,” a 1998 television mini-series, and the 2005 TV movie “Lackawanna Blues,” a version of the Ruben Santiago-Hudson play. In a forthcoming film, “Freedom’s Path,” about the Underground Railroad, Mr. Byrd plays the role of Abner, a father figure to a group of former slaves.
Information about his survivors was not immediately available.
Mr. Wyckoff said that in recent years Mr. Byrd had started teaching acting as he tried to “get his personal life together” after a set of personal struggles.
Nasser Metcalfe, an actor and friend, said he had been “struck by his humility.”
At a showing of “Clockers” at a theater in Atlanta before the two met, both actors were in the audience. It wasn’t a screening, Mr. Metcalfe said, “just the 8 o’clock showing at the local multiplex.”
When the film ended, some of the people who had been sitting near Mr. Byrd stood up and applauded him. Mr. Byrd “very humbly” accepted their praise but did not want the spotlight on himself.When the film ended, some of the people who had been sitting near Mr. Byrd stood up and applauded him. Mr. Byrd “very humbly” accepted their praise but did not want the spotlight on himself.
“He appreciated the love, but he didn’t necessarily want to be the center of attention,” Mr. Metcalfe said in a phone call on Sunday. “He appreciated the love,” Mr. Metcalfe said in a phone call on Sunday, “but he didn’t necessarily want to be the center of attention.”
In an upcoming film, “Freedom’s Path,” about the Underground Railroad, Mr. Byrd plays the role of Abner, a father figure to a group of former slaves. Mr. Byrd had become “more introspective” in recent years, Mr. Metcalfe said. “He was on a path of spiritual self discovery, so to speak, more so than trying to book the next job,” he said.
Information about Mr. Byrd’s survivors was not immediately available. But, Mr. Metcalfe added, “whenever Spike called, he was there.”
He was born in Florida and raised in Georgia, Mr. Metcalfe said.
Mr. Byrd graduated from Morris Brown College, a historically Black liberal arts college in Atlanta, with a degree in education. He then attained a master of fine arts in dance from the California Institute of the Arts.
Though Mr. Byrd often performed as characters who were rough around the edges — Mr. Lee highlighted his role as “The Frightening Character Errol Barnes In CLOCKERS” — he was “the opposite of how he looked,” Mr. Wyckoff said, “and the opposite of what he played.”
Later in his life, Mr. Byrd “became more introspective,” Mr. Metcalfe said.
“He was on a path of spiritual self discovery, so to speak, more so than trying to book the next job,” he said.
But, Mr. Metcalfe said, “whenever Spike called, he was there.”
When the two first met at an Atlanta restaurant where Mr. Metcalfe was working, Mr. Byrd advised him to “just focus on your craft.” In the early 2000s, when Mr. Byrd moved to New York for his role on Broadway, the actors lived two blocks away from each other in Harlem. They would read through scripts together, he said.
“There was no limit to his generosity,” Mr. Metcalfe said. “That’s who the man was.”