Isiah Whitlock Jr., an actor who made frequent memorable appearances on the HBO sequence The Wire and Veep and in 5 movies with director Spike Lee, died Tuesday. He was 71.
Whitlock’s supervisor Brian Liebman instructed The Related Press in an e-mail that the actor died in New York after a brief sickness.
Whitlock performed overtly corrupt state Sen. Clay Davis on 25 episodes throughout the 5 seasons of The Wire.
Davis, a fan-favourite character, was recognized for his profane catchphrase — “sheee-it” — delivered by Whitlock in moments of triumph and blunt honesty. The actor first used the phrase in his first movie with Lee, 2002’s The twenty fifth Hour, when his detective character discovers a cache of medicine hidden in a sofa.
“It’s an enormous, massive, massive loss,” Lee mentioned in a telephone name with the AP on Tuesday evening. “I’m going to overlook him for the remainder of my life.”
Whitlock went on to seem in 4 different Lee movies, together with 2004’s She Hate Me, 2012’s Crimson Hook Summer season, 2015’s Chi-Raq, 2018’s BlacKkKlansman and 2020’s Da 5 Bloods.
Get breaking Nationwide information
For information impacting Canada and all over the world, join breaking information alerts delivered on to you once they occur.
“We vibed over all these years,” Lee mentioned. “We clicked from the bounce.”
Lee mentioned he has particularly candy recollections of the prolonged time he spent with Whitlock taking pictures Da 5 Bloods on location in Thailand, and he fondly remembered the final time he noticed Whitlock — Lee and his daughter, Satchel, sat with him at a screening of Kiss of the Spider Girl earlier this yr.
“He was only a lovely, lovely soul,” Lee mentioned. “When you have been round him, he made everyone really feel good in his presence. He would radiate. I’d put that over his performing.”
Lee pointed to Whitlock’s comedian skills each on display screen and off.
“He was hilarious,” Lee mentioned. “That was simply his nature, he made folks giggle. All people was in on the joke.”
Whitlock is the second vital star of The Wire to die in latest weeks after the loss of life of actor James Ransone.
A local of South Bend, Indiana, Whitlock went to Southwest Minnesota State College, the place he performed soccer and studied theater. Accidents pushed him to check performing, and he moved to San Francisco to work in theater.
He started showing in small tv visitor roles on reveals together with Cagney and Lacy within the late Nineteen Eighties, and he had very small roles within the 1990 movies Goodfellas and Gremlins 2: The New Batch.
After The Wire, Whitlock moved on to a different HBO present, the political satire Veep, the place he performed Secretary of Protection George Maddox for 3 seasons. The character ran towards Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ Selina Meyer in presidential primaries.
The Wire creator David Simon additionally paid tribute to Whitlock in a put up on Bluesky.
“As positive an actor as he was,” Simon mentioned, “Isiah was a good higher spirit and the best gentleman.”
© 2025 The Canadian Press
