Actor who played the venal Maryland state governor Clay Davis in the US crime drama The Wire
Many fictional characters are known by their catchphrases. Few are identifiable by a single exclamation alone. Among the exceptions are Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest (“A handbag?”) and the venal Maryland state senator Clay Davis, who appeared in all five series of the acclaimed US crime drama The Wire between 2002 and 2008.
Senator Davis, played by Isiah Whitlock Jr, who has died aged 71, was notable for his unique pronunciation of a monosyllabic expletive. On his lips, its central vowel was bent out of shape and stretched as thin as pizza dough: “Sheee-it”.
David Simon created The Wire but it was Whitlock who originated that word’s distinctive delivery. It was a hangover from his performance in Spike Lee’s 25th Hour (2002). Whitlock played the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) agent Amos Flood, who utters the elongated word after retrieving cash and drugs stowed inside a suspect’s sofa.
It became an in-joke or call-back in his later performances as Flood in Lee’s films She Hate Me (2004) and Red Hook Summer (2012). In the latter, which found the character seemingly demoted to precinct detective, he gave what Slate called “arguably the longest, richest sheee-it to date”. It earned yet another reprise in Lee’s BlacKkKlansman (2018).
