Nelsan Ellis

 Nelsan Ellis (November 30, 1977 – July 8, 2017)

He achieved critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO series True Blood (2008–2014), for which he won a Satellite Award from the International Press Academy, among other accolades. He also starred as Shinwell Johnson in Elementary from 2016 to 2017,and played a variety of guest roles in other television series, including Veronica Mars and Without a Trace. In addition to his television work, Ellis appeared in several feature films throughout his career; he portrayed Eddie Sweat in the Disney sports drama Secretariat (2010), as Martin Luther King, Jr. in Lee Daniels' The Butler (2013), and as Bobby Byrd in the 2014 James Brown biopic Get on Up. His final acting role was in True to the Game, which was released posthumously. Ellis died at the age of 39 on July 8, 2017, in Woodhull Medical Center, New York, after complications from heart failure. His family released a statement on July 10 saying that Ellis had been trying to quit drinking alcohol in the days before his death, and that alcohol withdrawal syndrome led to his heart failure.