Isiah Whitlock Jr., the veteran character actor best known for his roles in “The Wire,” “Veep” and several Spike Lee films, has died. He was 71.
Whitlock died Tuesday in New York after battling a short illness, his manager, Brian Liebman, told Deadline.
“If you knew him — you loved him,” Liebman wrote in an Instagram post. “A brilliant actor and even better person. May his memory forever be a blessing. Our hearts are so broken. He will be very, very missed.”
With more than 125 credits to his name — including two upcoming films — Whitlock was a versatile actor capable of adapting to many different roles. His most frequent collaborator was Spike Lee, who Whitlock worked with on “25th Hour,” “She Hate Me,” “Chi-Raq,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Da 5 Bloods.”
On the small screen, he was most famous as corrupt state senator Clay Davis on HBO’s “The Wire.” Whitlock appeared sporadically in the first four seasons before joining the main cast for the final season.
The show introduced many to Whitlock’s trademark, the drawn out expletive “sheeeeeit,” uttered by his characters in apparent disbelief. Whitlock said he picked up the tic from an uncle, then brought it to his first two films with Lee.
By the time he made it to “The Wire,” producers and writers wrote it into the script for him, leading to a number of memorable moments and dozens of on-the-street fan interactions.
“They don’t quite do it the way I do it,” Whitlock told Slate in 2008. “They kind of butcher it.”
Whitlock returned to HBO in 2014 on “Veep” as defense secretary George Maddox, who unsuccessfully competes for a presidential nomination against Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ character.
His final role came as Metropolitan Police Chief Larry Dokes in the Netflix miniseries “The Residence,” following a recurring role as the mayor of New Orleans in Showtime’s “Your Honor.” His voice will be heard in the Disney Pixar animated sci-fi film “Hoppers,” due out in March.