LANCE REDDICK

18 Mar

(7 June 1962 - 17 March 2023)

The American actor and musician Lance Reddick has died suddenly, apparently of natural causes at the age of 60. He pursued a very successful career in films and television and became best-known for his role as police commissioner Cedric Daniels in HBO’s long-running The Wire (2002-2008). Daniels was one of the few good guys in the Baltimore Police Department, many of whose officers were not above corruption.

In the cinema, Reddick made his name in the John Wick series (from 2014), in which Keanu Reeves plays the titular hitman. Reddick portrayed Charon in the original film and its three sequels, the accommodating concierge at the New York Continental Hotel. Sadly, Reddick died just as John Wick: Chapter 4 went on release. However, he also plays Charon in the John Wick spin-off release, Ballerina, due out in 2024.

Lance Solomon Reddick was born in Baltimore, the son of Solomon and Dorothy Reddick. He studied music as a teenager at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester and, as a Bachelor of Music, also taught composition and theory, while at Yale he gained a Master of Fine Arts degree. An injury forced him to rethink his musical career prospects and he changed over to acting, inspired apparently by Paul Giamatti, Meryl Streep and Daniel Day-Lewis.

His first film was Alfonso Cuaron’s update of Great Expectations in 1998, with Ethan Hawke and Gwyneth Paltrow. Before that he had played in a collection of TV series and movies and continued to appear on both television and in film concurrently. He had a recurring part in Oz, a prison drama series, as well as Law & Order and The Wire. He took the main role of the paranormal expert Phillip Broyles in the science fiction series Fringe (2008-2013) and did eight episodes of Resident Evil, the action horror series based on the video game. On TV he was also Chief Irvin Irving in Bosch, about the LA Police Department. His last role will be as Zeus in Disney’s Percy Jackson and the Olympians, which will be released posthumously. He also provided voice-overs for many video games. In 2007 he released an album of his musical compositions called Contemplations and Remembrances.

Lance Reddick was first married to the late Suzanne Louis and they have two children, Yvonne and Christopher. He was also married to Stephanie Day, from 2011.

MICHAEL DARVELL

Michael Darvell

Michael Darvell trained as a librarian at Watford and in Surrey before joining Ealing Libraries where he became Music Librarian for the borough. He edited Masthead, the magazine of the University of North London School of Librarianship, The Surrealist, the staff magazine of Surrey County Library, and contributed to the Assistant Librarian and London Librarian professional journals. A freelance film reviewer since 1970, he has written for Film, Films Illustrated, Film Review, Movie Maker and Radio Times, as well as editing Montage, the London film societies magazine, for ten years. A change of career saw him joining What’s On in London as Features Editor and he eventually stepped into the shoes of the late F. Maurice Speed (founding father of Film Review annual) as the magazine’s Editor. From 2007 to 2015, he was co-editor of the Film Review annual with Mansel Stimpson. As well as writing about films, Michael has reviewed theatre for The Stage newspaper, and has written about music theatre and cabaret for the Classical Source and Musical Theatre Review websites. He is also a former restaurant critic for the ViewLondon website. Michael has been a member of the London Film Critics’ Circle since 2005.

LANCE REDDICK

RYUICHI SAKAMOTO

CHAIM TOPOL