Actor Leslie Jordan, best known for his role in ” Will and Grace died in a car accident in Hollywood. He was 67 years old.
Leslie Jordan, the effervescent actor, comedian and singer, died Monday October 24 following a car accident in Los Angeles. He was 67 years old.
Jordan’s agent, David Shaul, confirmed the actor’s death to RollingStone. ” The world is a much darker place today without the love and light of Leslie Jordandid he declare. Not only was he a great talent and a pleasure to work with, but he provided emotional sanctuary for the nation at one of its most difficult times. What he lacked in size he made up for in his generosity and greatness as a son, brother, entertainer, comedian, partner, and human being. Knowing that he left the world at the height of his professional and personal life is the only comfort one can have today. “.
According to Los Angeles Times, Jordan was driving a BMW when it crashed into a building in the Hollywood neighborhood. Jordan was pronounced dead at the scene.
Leslie Jordan has spent decades working on stage and screen, appearing on hit shows like American Horror Story and The Cool Kidsas well as in Will and Gracefor which he won an Emmy in 2006. He is also known for his performance in the Del Shores LGBTQ classic, Sordid Lives. At the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, Jordan caught the internet’s attention with his regular lockdown videos, going viral on several occasions.
I’m processing this lost and it is beyond devastating. Thank you for all the messages, calls and condolences. This is all I can do right now. I’ll be back. pic.twitter.com/dWP1zK8x7g
—Del Shores (@DelShores) October 24, 2022
Jordan was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee on April 29, 1955. Although he grew up in a strict Baptist community, Jordan came out as gay to his mother when he was 12 years old. In an Instagram video last March, he explains that his mother’s first reaction was to try to protect him, encouraging him to ” live a quiet life lest he be subject to ridicule. ” And so here I amexclaimed Jordan laughing, living a quiet life! “.
As Jordan told the Guardian last year he left home in his early 20s to move to Atlanta, where he began working with racehorses and famed trainer Horatio Luro. During a late stint in college, he studied journalism and acting, then moved to Los Angeles, where he soon began getting roles in commercials, TV shows, and sometimes movies. . He also immersed himself in the city’s gay nightlife and, in the early 1990s, worked with nonprofit organizations to provide food and comfort to people battling HIV and AIDS.
But all the while, Jordan is drinking heavily and doing drugs. He finally got sober at the age of 42, after a stint in prison. ” That’s what I tell people: if you want to get sober, try spending 27 days in the men’s county jail in Los Angeles. It will sober you up “.
In 1996, Jordan was part of the cast of the play Sordid Lives of Del Shores, where he holds one of the central roles, that of Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram, a homosexual obsessed with Tammy Wynette and lover of flirting, who has been interned for more than 20 years. Jordan received rave reviews for his portrayal and reprized the role in the film adaptation of Sordid Lives by Shores in 2000, as well as in a television series in 2008 and in a sequel in 2017, A Very Sordid Wedding.
Without ever becoming a great success, Sordid Lives quickly became a cult classic, especially in the LGBTQ community. In a recent interview with ViceJordan recalls: Right after the movie came out, I was at Piccadilly Circus and a taxi started following me. I thought, this is scary. They rolled down the window and yelled “See my pussy now?” [phrase que crie Brother Boy à un gardien homophobe]. I thought, oh my god, they’re yelling my text in London taxis! “.
Most of Jordan’s work in the 1990s and 2000s took the form of television appearances, although he had a regular role on the short-lived sitcom Hearts Afire. He made his first appearance in Will and Grace as Beverly Leslie in 2001 and subsequently made 12 appearances on the show (as well as its recent reboot). He joined the franchise American Horror Story for the first time in the series Coven in 2013, then he appeared in Roanoke in 2016 and 1984 in 2019.
Jordan was also an accomplished writer, who penned several shows and autobiographical books. His first one-man-show, Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life Thus Far, premiered in 1994. It traced his journey from Tennessee to Hollywood with the help of a gospel choir. His 2008 show, My Trip Down the Pink Carpet, was turned into a book of the same name. And last year he published another book, How Y’all Doing? Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived.
Although his presence is constant and familiar in certain corners of pop culture, Jordan seemed poised for a late-career rebirth, when his lockdown videos went viral at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020. In addition to the publication of How Y’all Doinghe played an important role in the biographical film of Billie Holiday, The United States vs. Billie Holidayand was cast in the Fox sitcom, call me katwhich has just started its third season.
Last year, Leslie Jordan also released her debut album, a collection of gospel songs titled Company’s Comin’. As he said to RollingStone at the time, the songs he recorded were largely those he remembered from his Baptist youth, which he wanted to perform without any bitterness. ” To be able to come back to those hymns without any hidden intentions, I took care of all that. I’ve been sober for 22 years, and we’ve been working a lot on anger and resentment in Alcoholics Anonymous. You come to realize that everyone back then was doing the best they could with the light they had to see. »
Jon Blisten
Translated by the editor