Death comes at the king
Actor Michael K Williams, who as the rogue robber of drug dealers Omar Little on The Wire created one of the most beloved and enduring characters in a prime era of television, died yesterday.
Williams was found dead by family members in his Brooklyn penthouse apartment, New York City police said. He was 54.
His death was being investigated as a possible drug overdose, the NYPD said. The medical examiner was investigating the cause of death.
Little, a “stick-up boy” based on real figures from Baltimore, was probably the most popular character among the devoted fans of The Wire, the HBO show that ran from 2002 to 2008 and is re-watched constantly in streaming.
Many of his lines were among The
Wire's most famous quotes including: “But the game is out there, and it’s either play or get played”; “all in the game yo, all in the game”; “man, money ain’t got no owners, only spenders”; “a man gotta have a code”; and especially “you come at the king, you best not miss”.
Williams was also a ubiquitous character actor in other shows and films for more than two decades, creating another classic character as Chalky White in HBO’s Boardwalk Empire from 2010 to 2014, and appearing in the HBO series Lovecraft Country and the films 12 Years a Slave
and Assassin’s Creed.
As Little, he played a criminal with a strict moral code, known for taking advantage of a reputation for brutality that wasn’t always real.
Williams, who had worked in tiny TV roles and as a back-up dancer for hiphop acts before landing the role, had said that reputation started to stick to him in real life.
“The character of Omar thrusted me into the limelight,” he told Stephen Colbert on The Late Show in 2016. “I had very low selfesteem growing up, a high need to be accepted, a corny kid from the projects. So all of a sudden, I’m like, Omar, yo, I’m getting respect from people who probably would have took my lunch money as a kid.”
With smoke from his cigarette often wafting through the darkness, the character would whistle the melody known to American children as The Farmer in the Dell and British children as A Hunting We Will Go to ominously announce his arrival.
The character also broke TV ground as an openly gay man whose sexuality wasn’t central to his role.
Williams appeared in all five seasons of The Wire , his character growing in prominence with each season.
Instantly recognisable with a distinctive scar that ran the length of his face, Williams said most people who saw him on the street called him “Omar”, but he never really resembled the character. “I could never be Omar,” he told Colbert with a laugh. “I didn’t have the balls that dude had.”
His Wire co-stars, and many others, paid him tribute. “The depth of my love for this brother, can only be matched by the depth of my pain learning of his loss,” Wendell Pierce, who played Detective William “Bunk” Moreland, said on Twitter.
“An immensely talented man with the ability to give voice to the human condition portraying the lives of those whose humanity is seldom elevated until he sings their truth.” David Simon, who created the show and Williams’ character, said on Twitter that he was: “Too gutted right now to say all that ought to be said. Michael was a fine man and a rare talent and on our journey together he always deserved the best words. And today those words won’t come.”
Williams was born in 1966 in Brooklyn, the son of a mother from Nassau, Bahamas, and a father from South Carolina.He had been working with a New Jersey charity to smooth the journey for former prison inmates seeking to re-enter society, and was working on a documentary on the subject.