Andre Braugher, ‘Homicide: Life on the Street’ and ‘Brooklyn Nine-Nine’ Star, Dies at 61
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Andre Braugher, the dynamic actor known for his outstanding work on such shows as Homicide: Life on the Street and Brooklyn Nine-Nine, has died. He was 61.
Braugher died Monday after a brief illness, his longtime rep Jennifer Allen told The Hollywood Reporter. The cause of death turned out to be lung cancer.
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Braugher starred as master interrogator Det. Frank Pembleton on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Street for the first six seasons of the show’s acclaimed 1993-99 run, then played another cop, Capt. Raymond Holt — this time against type and for laughs — on the 2013-21 Fox-NBC sitcom Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
He won his first Emmy in 1998 for outstanding lead actor in a drama series for Homicide after a season that featured one of its most memorable episodes, “Subway.” That was a two-hander in which Pembleton tries to unearth whether a man (Vincent D’Onofrio) pinned between a Baltimore subway train and the platform was pushed onto the track — while also trying to comfort him in his dying moments.
Braugher’s second Emmy came for his performance as the leader of a crew planning a high-stakes heist on the 2006 FX miniseries Thief.
After replacing Wendell Pierce, he stood out — as he always did — as Owen Thoreau Jr. alongside Ray Romano and Scott Bakula on the 2009-11 TNT dramedy Men of a Certain Age. He got two Emmy noms for that, and four for Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
The regal Braugher first made a TV name for himself as Det. Winston Blake on a series of Telly Savalas-starring Kojak telefilms that aired in 1989-90 and was yet another cop on the 2002-04 CBS series Hack, starring David Morse.
In between, he portrayed a character based on a real-life doctor on the 2000-01 ABC series Gideon’s Crossing from Paul Attanasio, the creator of Homicide as well.
He made a career out of playing upstanding individuals.
Braugher was tapped in February to be the male lead on Netflix’s Shonda Rhimes drama The Residence, starring opposite Uzo Aduba. The White House murder-mystery started production before shutting down amid Hollywood’s dual strikes.
He had already completed filming a lot of his scenes on the series, which was scheduled to resume filming in January. It’s unclear what The Residence, from showrunner Paul William Davies (Scandal), will do in the wake of his death.
Braugher recently portrayed New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet in She Said (2022), which revolved around the two journalists whose reporting led to the prosecution of Harvey Weinstein and sparked the #MeToo movement.
He also starred on the sixth and final season of Paramount+’s legal drama The Good Fight in 2022.
“I may not be the best actor in the world, but I just can’t do the one-dimensional roles. I can’t do cartoons of people,” Braugher told The Washington Post in 1990. “If the role is sweet, I want to turn it ugly. If it is ugly, I want to turn it sweet.”
The youngest of four children, Andre Keith Braugher was born in Chicago on July 1, 1962. His father worked as a heavy-equipment operator, his mother for the U.S. Postal Service. He attended the prestigious St. Ignatius College Prep in his hometown, then earned a B.A. from Stanford University and a master’s degree from Juilliard — he received scholarships to all three schools.
He considered a career in medicine but discovered at Stanford that “doing a play was more exciting than doing math in the library,” he said. “Nobody applauds you in the library.”
Director Ed Zwick saw Braugher in a showcase at Juilliard when he was a senior and cast him as Cpl. Thomas Searles in his first movie, Glory (1989).
Early on, he also was a frequent actor in Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park productions in New York City, playing roles in Richard II, Henry V, Hamlet and As You Like It over the years. “I find the complexity and the depth and richness of Shakespeare an incredible magnet,” he noted.
Braugher’s big-screen résumé was impressive: Gregory Hoblit’s Primal Fear (1996), Spike Lee’s Get on the Bus (1996), City of Angels (1998), All The Rage (1999), Thick as Thieves (1999), Duets (2000), Frequency (2000), A Better Way to Die (2000), Poseidon (2006), Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer (2007), Frank Darabont’s The Mist (2007), Passengers (2008), Phillip Noyce’s Salt (2010) and Spirit Untamed (2021).
Other noteworthy efforts included work in the 1990 TNT telefilm The Court-Martial of Jackie Robinson (as the Brooklyn Dodgers legend); the 1999 TNT telefilm Passing Glory, directed by Steve James; the 2002 Showtime telefilm 10,000 Black Men Named George, helmed by Robert Townsend; and the 2004 and 2008 miniseries Salem’s Lot and The Andromeda Strain.
Survivors include his wife, actress Ami Brabson (they first met in 1988, she was his onscreen wife, Mary, on Homicide, and they married for real in 1991); sons Michael, Isaiah and John Wesley; brother Charles; and mother Sally. In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to the Classical Theatre of Harlem.
In a 2014 interview with The New York Times, Homicide showrunner Tom Fontana noted that the series began “as an ensemble piece. And it became The Andre Braugher Show. All the writers wanted to write for him because he was great and because they wanted to see if they could screw him up, throw him off his game.
“He could say so much with his eyes,” Fontana added. “We’d write these incredibly glorious speeches for him, and then you would see him just look at someone, and we’d sometimes go: ‘Drop the monologue. He’s already sold it.’”
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