Michael Wright, who starred as the lead vocalist Eddie King Jr. in Robert Townsend’s The Five Heartbeats and as Wesley Snipes’ brother in Sugar Hill, has died. He was 70.
Wright died Wednesday in Los Angeles of heart failure and complications from Marchiafava-Bignami, a rare degenerative neurological disease, TMZ reported.
“Our family is grieving an enormous and deeply personal loss,” his wife, Susan, wrote on Instagram. “Michael, your work will live forever, but your love will live even longer in the hearts of those who knew you best. Rest peacefully, my love. You will be missed beyond words.”
The lanky Wright also stood out as the Resistance leader Elias Taylor on the popular NBC miniseries and series V in the mid-1980s and as the drug-addled inmate Omar White on 22 episodes of HBO’s Oz over three seasons from 2001-03.
In The Five Heartbeats (1991), written by Townsend and Keenen Ivory Wayans, Wright sparkled as the leader of the Motown-inspired R&B group that struggled to deal with success over the years (his character battled drugs and alcohol). The group also featured Townsend as Duck Matthews, Tico Wells as Anthony “Choirboy” Stone, Leon as J.T. Matthews and Harry J. Lennix as Terrence “Dresser” Williams.
