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Andre Braugher, the Emmy-winning actor who mastered gritty drama for seven seasons on Homicide: Life on The Street and comedy for eight on Brooklyn Nine-Nine, died Monday at 61 after a brief illness.
He won his first Emmy in the lead role of Det. Frank Pembleton on Homicide: Life on the Street, a dark police drama based on a book by David Simon, who would go on to create The Wire. The show, which focused on the homicide unit of the Baltimore Police Department, ran from 1993 to 1997 on NBC. “The show began as an ensemble piece,” showrunner Tom Fontana told The New York Times, “and it became the Andre Braugher show. All the writers wanted to write for him because he was great.” Pembleton was the master of interrogation, breaking down characters played by guest stars like Paul Giamatti and Steve Buscemi.
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Braugher feared he would be typecast after spending most of the 1990s as the brooding detective.
“If I do it too long, then I’ll stop really searching and probing inside my own work,” he told the Associated Press in 1998. “That’s just a great danger. I think I’m going to escape that trap, and get an opportunity to do some work that will be more challenging for me.”
He managed to make the leap to comedy as a very different kind of cop on a very different kind of show, Capt. Ray Holt on the Andy Samberg-starring show Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It ran from 2013 to 2021 on Fox and NBC.
Though he’d dipped his toe into comedy in the TNT dramedy Men of a Certain Age, Brooklyn Nine-Nine represented a major shift for Braugher, who was known for acting in dark and heavy dramas.
“I’m really a happy guy,” he told AARP. “Life is good! My family’s healthy, we love each other. But that’s not the guy Hollywood wants me to be.”
He would be nominated for four Emmys during the run.
Braugher’s Brooklyn Nine-Nine costar Terry Crews was among those paying tribute to him.
“I’m honored to have known you, laughed with you, worked with you and shared 8 glorious years watching your irreplaceable talent,” Crews said on Instagram. “This hurts. You left us too soon.”
Marc Evan Jackson, who played Braugher’s on-screen husband Kevin, shared a photo with him from the set. “Andre elevated every moment he came anywhere near, and it was an honor to have known and worked with him,” he told People magazine. “My deepest condolences to his family, and all those who like all of us, loved him very much.”
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