Glynn Turman

Glynn Russell Turman (born January 31, 1947) is an American stage, television, and film actor as well as a writer, director, and producer. Turman is known for his roles as Lew Miles on the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (1968–69), high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom A Different World (1988–93), and Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series The Wire. He also portrayed Jeremiah Kaan on the Showtime series House of Lies.

Glynn Turman
Turman in 2007
Born	(1947-01-31) January 31, 1947 New York City, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor director writer
Years active	1959–present
Known for	Leroy "Preach" Jackson – Cooley High Colonel Bradford Taylor – A Different World Clarence Royce – The Wire
Spouse(s)	Ula M. Walker ​ ( m. 1965; div. 1971) Aretha Franklin ​ ( m. 1978; div. 1984) Jo-Ann Allen ( m. 1992)
Children	3

Biography

Background and education

Turman was born in New York City, New York. According to a DNA analysis, Turman shares maternal ancestry with the Edo people of Nigeria.[1] Turman studied at High School of Performing Arts located in the Manhattan section of New York City, graduating in 1965.[2]

Career

Turman had his first prominent acting role at the age of 12 as Travis Younger in the original Broadway production of Lorraine Hansberry's classic A Raisin in the Sun, opposite Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Ivan Dixon, Louis Gossett Jr., Lonne Elder III, John Fiedler and Diana Sands. While he did not play the role when it transferred to film in 1961, Turman intensified his studies in high school.

Upon graduation, he apprenticed in regional and repertory companies throughout the country, including Tyrone Guthrie's Repertory Theatre, in which he performed in late '1960s productions of Good Boys, Harper's Ferry, The Visit and The House of Atreus. He made his Los Angeles stage debut in Vinnette Carroll's Slow Dance on the Killing Ground. An impressive 1974 performance in The Wine Sellers earned him a Los Angeles Critics Award nomination and a Dramalogue Award. The play was also produced on Broadway as What The Wine Sellers Buy. He won his first NAACP Image Award for his work in the play Eyes of the American.

A stage director as well, he received his second NAACP Image award for his directing of Deadwood Dick at the Inner City Cultural Center. He segued these directing talents to TV where he helmed several episodes of The Parent 'Hood, Hangin' with Mr. Cooper, and The Wayans Bros, among others. He also directed during his seasons of steady employment on A Different World, in which he played the role of Colonel Taylor for five seasons; from 1988 until 1993.

Turman on Broadway in Raisin in the Sun. L-R: Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, Glynn Turman, Sidney Poitier, and John Fiedler.

Turman began his film career in the 1970s with such blaxploitation flicks as Five on the Black Hand Side (1973), Thomasine & Bushrod (1974) and Together Brothers (1974), then progressed to roles in Cooley High (1975), plus The River Niger (1976), J. D.'s Revenge (1976) and A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (1978). TV movies included Carter's Army, the prestigious Centennial, Attica, and Minstrel Man, for which he won his third NAACP Image Award.

Gylnn's television directorial accolades have been overshadowed only in part because of his bold and dignified presence in front of the camera. Given the opportunity, he directed an all White cast television show, Dynasty, directing Season 3, Episode 21, The Vote, which aired on ABC on March 16, 1983. This added an African-American presence to the cast and production team, before Diahann Caroll made her grand entrance being cast as Dominique Devereaux. This solidified Glynn's talent both in front and behind the camera.

The quality of Glynn's work has shown over the decades with his participation in such prominent TV-movies as Race to Freedom: The Underground Railroad in 1994, Buffalo Soldiers and Freedom Song. More notable films include Penitentiary II (1982), Gremlins (1984), Deep Cover (1992), How Stella Got Her Groove Back (1998), Men of Honor (2000), Sahara (2005), Kings of the Evening (2007), Burlesque (2010) and Super 8 (2011). In 2004, he joined the hit HBO series The Wire portraying the recurring role of Mayor Clarence Royce, becoming a full-time regular in 2006.

His portrayal of Mayor Royce has given him an NAACP Image award nomination for Outstanding Support Actor in a Drama Series for the 2007 awards ceremony.[3] Since The Wire, Turman guest-starred as a patient in the Scrubs episode "My Last Words". Turman's other television appearances include Hawaii Five-O (as Harley Dartson, 1973, S6/Ep7 - Tricks Are Not Treats), the Twilight Zone segment "Paladin of the Lost Hour" (co-starring Danny Kaye with a script by Harlan Ellison), Matlock, Millennium, and the sitcom All of Us. In 2008, he won a Primetime Emmy award for his guest appearance on the HBO series In Treatment. He appeared in the ABC series Detroit 1-8-7. He is currently performing and producing a one-man show, Movin' Man, about his life and plans a book as well.

Turman was almost cast for the role of Han Solo in Star Wars. In a 2007 interview, Turman recalled: "That was in George Lucas' book. Apparently George Lucas had me in mind for the role, and then thought that there might be too much controversy between a white Princess Leia and a black Han Solo – because those were the times – and he didn't want to get into that. At the time, I had no idea. I just went to the audition, did it and got out of there."[4] In 2012, he began starring in House of Lies on Showtime as the father of the characters played by Don Cheadle and Larenz Tate. In 2016, he appeared in the Oprah Winfrey Network tv show Queen Sugar in which he played the father, Ernest Bordelon. The character died in season one, episode one. In

In 2017, Turman was cast as Nate Lahey Sr in 10 episodes, seasons 4 and 5 of the ABC drama How to Get Away With Murder. His character was the imprisoned father of Nate Lahey (Billy Brown) a former police officer, detective and lover to series star Annalise Keating (Viola Davis). Keating made Turman's character the face of a class action U.S Supreme Court case of mistreatment of minorities in the criminal justice system. The court found Lahey Sr to be mentally ill and during transfer to a mental facility he was shot and killed. 2018, Turman appeared on the Legal Drama Suits as Vic.

Personal life

Turman has been married three times and has three children. Turman was married to Ula M. Walker from 1965 until 1971. Together, Turman and Walker had three children. Turman married singer Aretha Franklin on April 11, 1978, at her father's (C. L. Franklin) New Bethel Baptist Church in Detroit, Michigan. Turman and Franklin separated in 1982 and later divorced in 1984. Since 1992, Turman has been married to Jo-An Allen.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1970	Carter's Army	Pvt. George Brightman	TV Movie
1971	Honky	Sailor at bus station
1972	A.W.O.L.	Mohammed G.
1973	Five on the Black Hand Side	Gideon Brooks
1974	Thomasine & Bushrod	Jomo J. Anderson
1974	Together Brothers	Dr. Johnson
1975	Cooley High	Preach
1976	The River Niger	Jeff Williams
1976	J. D.'s Revenge	Isaac
1977	The Serpent's Egg	Monroe
1978	A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich	Nigeria
1980	Attica	Raymond Franklin	TV Movie
1981	Thornwell	James Thornwell	TV Movie
1982	Penitentiary II	Charles Johnson
1984	Gremlins	Roy Hanson
1986	Out of Bounds	Lieutenant Delgado
1992	Deep Cover	Russell Stevens Sr.
1994	The Inkwell	Spencer Phillips
1996	Subterfuge	Stallworth Hubbs
1997	Buffalo Soldiers	Sgt. Joshua 'Joyu' Judges Ruth	TV Movie
1998	How Stella Got Her Groove Back	Dr. Shakespeare
1999	Light It Up	Principal Allan Armstrong
2000	Freedom Song	T-Bone Lanier
2000	The Visit	Parole Board Member Reingold
2000	Men of Honor	Chief Floyd
2001	Fire & Ice	Robert Aimes Sr.	TV Movie
2004	The Seat Filler	Derrick's Dad
2005	Sahara	Dr. Frank Hopper
2007	City Teacher	Kevin Sawyer
2007	Kings of the Evening	Clarence Brown
2009	Preaching to the Pastor	Bishop Hightower
2010	Takers	Chief Detective Duncan
2010	Burlesque	Harold Saint
2011	Super 8	Dr. Woodward
2012	John Dies at the End	Detective Appleton
2012	Who Killed Soul Glow?
2012	The Obama Effect	Slim Sugar
2012	The Pastor's Secrets
2013	Act Like You Love Me	David
2014	Dakota's Summer	Isaac Benson
2016	Race	Harry Davis
2018	Solace	Clay
2018	Bumblebee	General Whalen
2019	Sextuplets	Leland
2019	Windows on the World	Lou
2019	Justine	Papa Don
2020	The Way Back	Doc
2020	Ma Rainey's Black Bottom	Toledo	Post-production

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1968-1969	Peyton Place	Lew Miles	37 episodes
1969	Julia	Jimmy James	2 episodes
1975	The Blue Knight	Edwin Beall	Season 1, Episode 1: "Pilot"
1978	The Paper Chase	Raymond Livingston	Season 1, Episode 9: "Moot Court"[5]
1978-1979	Centennial	Nate Person	5 episodes
1984	Fantasy Island	Joe Wilson	Season 7, Episode 21: "Bojangles and the Dancer/Deuces Are Wild"
1984	T. J. Hooker	Norman Powell	Season 4, Episode 5: "Anatomy of a Killing"
1985-1989	Murder, She Wrote	Earl Browder / Stan Lassiter / Ben Coleman	3 episodes
1986	The Redd Foxx Show	Rod Tyler	Season 1, Episode 2: "High School Blues"
1987	Matlock	Maj. Dennis Orlando	2 episodes
1988-1993	A Different World	Colonel Bradford Taylor	68 episodes
2000-2002	Resurrection Blvd.	Bobby Davis	7 episodes
2004-2005	The Bernie Mac Show	Carl McCullough	2 episodes
2004-2008	The Wire	Mayor Clarence V. Royce	22 episodes
2008-2009	In Treatment	Alex Prince, Sr.	4 episodes
2009	‘’Scrubs’’	George Valentine	Season 8, Episode 2: "My Last Words"
2010-2011	The Defenders	Judge Bob Owens	5 episodes
2012	NCIS: Los Angeles	James Pierce	Season 4, Episode 5: "Out of the Past"
2012-2016	House of Lies	Jeremiah Kaan	51 episodes
2013	Criminal Minds	Charles Johnson	Season 9, Episode 9: "Strange Fruit"
2015	Proof	Colonel James Tyler	Season 1, Episode 7: "St. Luke's"
2016	Queen Sugar	Ernest Bordelon	2 episodes
2018-2019	How to Get Away with Murder	Nate Lahey Sr.	8 episodes
2019	Mr. Mercedes	Judge Raines	6 episodes
2019	Claws	Calvin Sims	2 episodes
2019	Power	Uncle Gabriel	1 episode
2020	Fargo	Doctor Senator[6]

References

1. Glynn Turman Ancestry Reveal on YouTube
2. Notable Alumni, LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts.Retrieved March 24, 2020.
3. "2007 Image Award nominees and winners". The Hollywood Reporter. The Nielsen Company. 1 March 2007. Archived from the original on March 15, 2007. Retrieved 5 November 2007.
4. Holan, Curt (2012). "Glynn Turman: Character actor brings star power to Atlanta". Creative Loafing Atlanta. Archived from the original on 3 March 2012. Retrieved 17 January 2012.
5. The Paper Chase, Season 1, Episode 9, "Moot Court" (YouTube)
6. Petski, Denise (September 3, 2019). "'Fargo': Glynn Turman To Recur In Season 4 Of FX Series". Deadline. Retrieved September 3, 2019.

External links

• Glynn Turman on IMDb
• Glynn Turman at the Internet Broadway Database
• Glynn Turman at the Internet Off-Broadway Database
• Glynn Turman at Rotten Tomatoes

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