Michael Clarke Duncan, made high and great actor with a shaved head and a deep voice who received an Oscar nomination for her role in the movement of a prisoner on death row in the sweet 1999 prison drama "The Green Mile, "died Monday. I 'was 54.
Duncan died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to a statement from his publicist, Joy Fehily. He had suffered a heart attack in July and will not recover.
A former digging ditches for a natural gas company in his native Chicago, Duncan began his saga of Hollywood celebrity bodyguard in the mid 1990's.
He received his first major action playing a member of the rig sent into space to blow up an asteroid to Earth in the big-budget 1998 film "Armageddon," starring Bruce Willis.
But it was "The Green Mile" starring Tom Hanks as a prison guard in Hall's death in a Louisiana prison during the depression, which pushed the 6-foot-5, 300 pounds more than the Duncan fore. He portrayed John Coffey, a gentle giant with supernatural powers, who was sentenced to death for the murder of two young white girls.
"There's something about him that I could not ignore," the writer-director Frank Darabont, Duncan said in an interview with Daily Variety, 2000. "After the first reading, followed torment. Given that this was a fairly inexperienced actor then, of course, was not a concern 'Wow, like this guy?'
"But when you put it in the movie, it was found that corresponded to the task."
Duncan acting teacher Larry Moss attributed to teach "how to dig into my" crying scenes by strong emotional film.
"I am an emotional person, a very emotional," Duncan told the Chicago Tribune in 2000. "All these tears you see in the film were mine."
In 2002, two years after the Oscars ceremony, Duncan told the Orange County Register:. "Actually, I did not think he would win the Oscar, but the appointment was a personal validation for me has shown me that I was a good actor. More importantly, it showed other people that I was a serious actor ".
Duncan then appeared in films such as "The Whole Nine Yards" (2000), "Planet of the Apes" (2001), "The Scorpion King" (2002) and "The Island" (2005). He also performed voice work in film and television, including "Brother Bear" (2003) and "Kung Fu Panda" (2008).
E 'was born December 10, 1957, and grew up on the South Side of Chicago. His father left the family when he was 6 years old, and he and his sister, Judith, was raised by his mother, who directed the bands of light, drugs and alcohol.
Growing up, harbored dreams of becoming an actor.
"Sure, people told me, 'Mikey, you will never be an actor. Could not see.' Re Ugly, '"he recalled in a 2003 interview with the Chicago Sun-Times.
What helped, he said, was that her mother "always told me to think 'YCDA. This is an acronym for' Anything you can do."
Duncan attended Alcorn State University in Mississippi, but it was before graduating to help her sick mother. Back in Chicago, he began working for the gas company.
At work, we talk a lot about his dream of going to Hollywood and become an actor to his colleagues the nickname "Hollywood Mike." Finally he quit his job and became a security guard for a traveling show. Once the exhibition has come to Los Angeles, he decided to stay.
Working first as a bodyguard of Martin Lawrence, Will Smith and other stars, began to land small roles in films and television. In 1998, he played a gorilla in "Bulworth" and "A Night at the Roxbury" and a bodyguard in "The Players Club."
Doing "Armageddon," Duncan is a friend of Willis, who was instrumental in making him the role in the adaptation of the novel series Darabont Stephen King "The Green Mile."
"Bruce said, 'Michael, I just read the script and it was this type John Coffey. Just know,'" Duncan recalled in an interview in 2001 Ottawa Citizen. Willis said he called Darabont - and so he did, saying he had found the man to play the role.
21:32 | 0
comments
