Michael Clarke Duncan, gone too soon.
Actor Michael Clarke Duncan died yesterday at age 54. He had been hospitalized on July 13 following a heart attack and had been in ill health since.
A giant of a man at 6′ 5″, Duncan spent most of his early years in the business playing bit parts with names like “Security Guard” or “Bouncer. In 1999, though, he got the role of a lifetime in John Coffey, the prison inmate opposite Tom Hanks’s prison guard in Frank Darabont’s “The Green Mile.” He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his performance.
Afterwards his quality of roles improved. He appeared in higher profile movies like “The Whole Nine Yards,” Tim Burton’s “The Planet of the Apes,” “Armageddon,” “The Island,” and “Sin City.” He did TV series work and with his booming bass voice, a lot of voice overs. He did voices for the movie “Kung Fu Panda,” the video game “God of War II,” and the TV series “Family Guy.”
Clarke had two films completed that will be released in coming months, “The Challenger” and Robert Townsend’s “In the Hive.”
