Andre Braugher, who in 1998 won the Emmy for best lead actor in a drama series for Homicide, died this Monday at the age of 61. It can be said that American television has lost its captain, an actor capable of penetrating an intergenerational television imaginary, first as homicide detective Frank Pembleton in the nineties and later as Captain Ray Holt, who allowed him to become known to new audiences in this last decade.
And, as demonstrated by the death of the also deceased Matthew Perry, which made Friends once again one of the most watched series on American television, recovering his most iconic works is a good way to pay tribute to the actor. The reader must be warned, however, that not all of these works are available on streaming platforms, which always have pending duties when it comes to having classics in the wardrobe of their catalogs.
Between 1973 and 1978 there was a well-known police lieutenant in New York, Theo Kojak, played by Telly Savalas. He was characterized by having a tough character but firm moral principles and was considered to have influenced the police titles of the 80s. Andre Braugher, for the record, did not appear in the series. Not even in the first two television movies produced after its cancellation. But when Kojak was rescued in another batch of five TV-movies, he signed on as Detective Winston Blake.
Kojak: Ariana, the first of these installments broadcast in 1989, represents Braugher's first role in front of the cameras. It was followed by Flowers for Matty, It's always something, None for blind and Fatal flaw, becoming a constant in a fictional universe present for three decades. The only way to see his work as Winston Blake is to find Kojak's English editions.
His work as Winston Blake made him the ideal candidate to lead Homicide, the gritty series about police activity in 1990s Baltimore created by Paul Attanasio but with Tom Fontana as showrunner. It was based on the journalistic work of David Simon, who would later become one of the most admired screenwriters in the field when he talked about the drug world of the same city in The Wire.
The series earned him two Emmy nominations, winning the award in 1998 in his second opportunity as Detective Frank Pembleton. Critics were clear that, if they wanted to find a man with an iron character and presence during interrogations, they should go to him. He was in the first six seasons, absent from the seventh, which was the last, because he feared being pigeonholed too much. “If I do it too long I will stop really searching and probing in my own work,” he told the AP after announcing his dismissal.
In 1996, between seasons of Homicide, the Chicago native actor found time to film this television movie produced by HBO. He had a historical vocation: he defended the Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of the United States Air Force that fought in World War II and was characterized by being made up of black men. It can be said that it was well accompanied: the cast included Laurence Fishburne, Courtney B. Vance and Cuba Gooding Jr. Despite being from HBO Pictures, it is not in the HBO Max catalogue, although it was released in Spanish on DVD .
Before the arrival of the Professor played by Álvaro Morte and written by Álex Pina, there was Nick Atwater. In the miniseries Thief, Braugher was a bank robber who, due to life's misfortunes, found himself dealing with his job, a stepdaughter, and a homicide resulting from a betrayal at work. In theory, the FX channel developed the project thinking that it could have a second season and low audiences prevented it. What Braugher did get out of the job was his second Emmy, this time for best actor in a miniseries.
And, with a nose for good roles (and knowing how to get the most out of them), since 2010 he has had two more nominations at the Emmys for Men of a Certain Age, a portrait of the midlife crisis concocted by Ray Romano, who wanted to get rid of the notion that he was only a comedy actor. Braugher's role was Owen, an anxious family man who hates his job.
In a television where it seems that the only way to analyze heterosexuality in middle age is through drug dealers, gangsters and immoral beings, this drama series offered an intimate and closer perspective to the viewer's daily life.
In 2013 came the break with respect to the idea that the viewer had of him. Braugher returned to the police genre to laugh at the conventions of the genre with Brooklyn Nine-Nine, where his captain Holt found comic relief in his ability to remain unfazed by the antics of the rest of the characters, including Andy Samberg.
It was at the forefront of fiction for eight seasons, becoming one of the critically acclaimed free-to-air series that found a second life in streaming, and was nominated four times for an Emmy as supporting comedy actor. Now that the actor has died, the relevance of the character can be understood in the displays of mourning from viewers on social networks. It can be seen on Netflix.
And, as the cherry on top of a career that ended unfairly early, in 2022 he offered one last television role that did not go unnoticed: that of Ri'Chard Lane in The good fight, the lawyer series derived from The good wife and headed by Christine Baranski and Audra McDonald. Presented as elegant, intelligent and quirky, he changed the dynamics of the law firm by entering as a partner in the sixth season.
"I am broken. He was very funny,” said Robert King, creator of the series with his wife Michelle, who wanted to highlight that he still “had a lot of life” and that it is “difficult for him to process” the loss. Braugher's season can be seen on Movistar Plus.
