David McKnight, who portrayed the title character in the cult blaxploitation horror classic J.D.’s Revenge and appeared in Hollywood Shuffle and The Five Heartbeats for Robert Townsend, has died. He was 87.
McKnight died Sunday of cancer in Las Vegas, his friend and publicist Cynthia Busby told The Hollywood Reporter.
McKnight also showed up on dozens of TV shows, from Kojak, Hill Street Blues, The Incredible Hulk, Dynasty and Benson to Moonlighting, 227, Roc, L.A. Law and The District.
In the New Orleans-set J.D.’s Revenge (1976), directed by Arthur Marks, McKnight played a deceased hustler who takes over the body of a college student (Glynn Turman) and goes after the man who murdered him and his sister 30 years earlier.
In a 2018 interview, McKnight said that he first met Townsend when the first-time feature filmmaker was putting together Hollywood Shuffle (1987) and offered him advice.
He was then hired to play Uncle Ray,...
McKnight died Sunday of cancer in Las Vegas, his friend and publicist Cynthia Busby told The Hollywood Reporter.
McKnight also showed up on dozens of TV shows, from Kojak, Hill Street Blues, The Incredible Hulk, Dynasty and Benson to Moonlighting, 227, Roc, L.A. Law and The District.
In the New Orleans-set J.D.’s Revenge (1976), directed by Arthur Marks, McKnight played a deceased hustler who takes over the body of a college student (Glynn Turman) and goes after the man who murdered him and his sister 30 years earlier.
In a 2018 interview, McKnight said that he first met Townsend when the first-time feature filmmaker was putting together Hollywood Shuffle (1987) and offered him advice.
He was then hired to play Uncle Ray,...
- 12/7/2023
- by Mike Barnes
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
[This story contains mild spoilers to The Bear season two.]
For as long as Ayo Edebiri can remember, Robert Townsend has been a part of her life. “He literally was my dad for a period,” says The Bear star, referencing the pioneering actor and director’s role as Robert Peterson on the WB sitcom The Parent ‘Hood, which he created and starred in from 1995-1999.
In a collage that sits in front of Edebiri’s desk is a cutout of a poster of Hollywood Shuffle, Townsend’s 1987 semi-autobiographical comedy which he co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in. When she and co-host Olivia Craighead released the second episode in the director series of their Iconography podcast on July 29, 2020, Townsend was Edebiri’s chosen icon. And when Christopher Storer, The Bear’s creator and co-showrunner, asked the actress who portrays Sydney in the comedy-drama who she wanted to play her dad in season two, she told him, “My dream would be Robert Townsend.
For as long as Ayo Edebiri can remember, Robert Townsend has been a part of her life. “He literally was my dad for a period,” says The Bear star, referencing the pioneering actor and director’s role as Robert Peterson on the WB sitcom The Parent ‘Hood, which he created and starred in from 1995-1999.
In a collage that sits in front of Edebiri’s desk is a cutout of a poster of Hollywood Shuffle, Townsend’s 1987 semi-autobiographical comedy which he co-wrote, produced, directed and starred in. When she and co-host Olivia Craighead released the second episode in the director series of their Iconography podcast on July 29, 2020, Townsend was Edebiri’s chosen icon. And when Christopher Storer, The Bear’s creator and co-showrunner, asked the actress who portrays Sydney in the comedy-drama who she wanted to play her dad in season two, she told him, “My dream would be Robert Townsend.
- 7/6/2023
- by Brande Victorian
- The Hollywood Reporter - Movie News
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