Nelsan Ellis, an actor best known for his role in the vampire series \u201cTrue Blood,\u201d has died. He was 39 years old.<\/p>\n
The actor died following complications from heart failure, his manager told CNN.<\/p>\n
His portrayal of Lafayette, a gay cook and medium, helped him spring onto the acting scene after his character became a favorite of fans of the HBO drama, which ran from 2008 to 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were extremely saddened to hear of the passing of Nelsan Ellis,\u201d the HBO network said in a statement Saturday. \u201cNelsan was a long-time member of the HBO family whose groundbreaking portrayal of Lafayette will be remembered fondly within the overall legacy of True Blood.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNelsan will be dearly missed by his fans and all of us at HBO.\u201d<\/p>\n
As news of his death spread many fans posted a clip from the show where Ellis\u2019s character bursts out of his restaurant kitchen to confront a table of homophobic diners.<\/p>\n
An alumnus of New York\u2019s prestigious Juilliard performing arts conservatory, Ellis\u2019s credits include silver screen appearances in 2009\u2019s \u201cThe Soloist\u201d as well as 2011\u2019s Oscar-award winning film \u201cThe Help.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy heart breaks for his kids and his family,\u201d wrote his co-star in that film Octavia Spencer in an Instagram post. \u201cHe was sooooo funny. I miss him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Illinois native also depicted Martin Luther King Jr in \u201cThe Butler,\u201d released in 2013.<\/p>\n
\u201cTrue Blood\u201d co-star Joe Manganiello took to Twitter to pay tribute to the late actor: \u201cCrushed today by the loss of my friend and castmate Nelsan Ellis.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was a wonderful person, a pioneer, and a one of a kind artist.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nelsan Ellis, an actor best known for his role in the vampire series \u201cTrue Blood,\u201d has died. He was 39 years old. The actor died following complications from heart failure, his manager told CNN. His portrayal of Lafayette, a gay cook and medium, helped him spring onto the acting scene after his character became a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3931,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[362],"class_list":{"0":"post-3930","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-true-blood-actor-nelsan-dies-at-39"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3930"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3930\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bartabangla.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}