Leslie Jordan American Actor (1955–2022)- Wiki, Bio, Age & Family

29 April 1955 – 24 October 2022 Leslie Allen Jordan was an American actor, writer, and singer. His television roles have included Lonnie Garr on Hearts Afire (1993–1995), Beverley Leslie on Will & Grace (2001–2006, 2017–2020), for which he won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006, various characters in the American Horror Story franchise (2013–2019), Sid on The Cool Kids (2018–2019), and Phil on Call Me Katy (2021–2022). He performed Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram from Sordid Lives onstage and in the cult classic film of the same name. During the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, Leslie Jordan gained 5.8 million Instagram followers and became an internet sensation. His autobiography How Y’all Doing?: Misadventures & Mischief from a Life Well Lived was published in April 2021.

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Early years

Leslie Jordan was born on April 29, 1955, in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and reared there. He earned his diploma from Brainerd High School. Leslie Jordan stated that his mother, Peggy Ann Gryphon Jordan (1935-2022), was loving and supportive despite never fully comprehending him. Leslie Jordan’s father, Allen Bernard Jordan, was a major in the United States Army Reserve who died on March 31, 1967, along with two others, in the accident of a civilian Beechcraft Debonair aeroplane at Camp Shelby, Mississippi. Jordan was eleven years old at the time. Jordan stated in a 2014 interview that he had difficulty growing up Southern Baptist: “I was 14 times baptised. Every time the pastor said, “Come forward, sinners!” the congregation would gather. I would answer, “Oh, I was in the woods with that boy, you’d better go on.””

In 1982,Leslie Jordan relocated to Los Angeles, where he engaged in substance abuse and was arrested multiple times. When Leslie Jordan was 27 years old, he began keeping a daily notebook, which assisted in his recovery from substance usage. Leslie Jordan disclosed to Wendy Williams in 2010 that he had been sober for thirteen years. During the same occasion, Leslie Jordan revealed that he and Robert Downey Jr. shared a cell before Jordan quit drinking. However, when they both appeared on Ally McBeal, Downey could not recall where they had met before.

He was an out gay man. During the early stages of the AIDS epidemic, Leslie Jordan became active with AIDS Project Los Angeles (APLA) as a friend and as a food delivery person for Project Angel Food.

Career

Film and Television

Leslie Jordan began his acting career in 1986, when he portrayed Malone in The Fall Guy. Due to his tiny stature and Southern accent, he became instantly recognisable in his field. Mr. Blackly, a newspaper editor, was portrayed by him in the film The Help. His television appearances include Murphy Brown, Will & Grace, Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, Star Trek: Voyager, Caroline in the City, Pee-Playhouse, wee’s Reba, Boston Public, Boston Legal, Nash Bridges, American Horror Story, and Hearts Afire.

In the 1990 film Ski Patrol, Leslie Jordan portrays the director of the ski patrol. In 2007, he appeared as celebrity-thrasher Quincy Combs on the comedic drama Ugly Betty and as Jesse Joe in the short-lived CW television series Hidden Palms.

On the television series Will & Grace, Leslie Jordan portrayed Karen’s snobbish and sexually ambiguous adversary, Beverley Leslie, for which he won the 58th Annual Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series in 2006. A week later, Cloris Leachman and he were invited to present the awards for Outstanding Writing for a Comedy Series and Outstanding Directing for a Comedy Series at the 2006 Emmy Awards.

Leslie Jordan featured in the pilot episode of Laugh Out, the first gay-themed interactive comedy show in the world. Jordan joined the fourteenth season of the British television game show Celebrity Big Brother on August 18, 2014. He was the second Big Brother houseguest to leave (August 29, 2014). In January 2015, Jordan appeared in two episodes of the British sitcom Benidorm as the character Buck A. Roo.

Leslie Jordan debuted on November 1, 2017, in the new British television drama Living the Dream, which was co-produced by Sky and Big Talk Productions but marketed as a Sky Original Production.

In 2018-2019, Leslie Jordan played alongside Martin Mull, Vicki Lawrence, and David Alan Grier in the Fox sitcom The Cool Kids.

Alongside Mayim Bialik, Swoosie Kurtz, Kyla Pratt, and Cheyenne Jackson, it was revealed on April 2, 2020, that Leslie Jordan would play the character of Phil in the Fox sitcom Call Me Kat.

Theatre

Leslie Jordan was an outstanding playwright and theatre actor. In Sordid Lives, he portrayed Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram, a role he later portrayed in the popular cult film of the same name. Jordan repeated the role in a television spin-off of the film that aired on Logo, in which he portrayed a mental hospital patient. The autobiographical drama he authored and starred in, Lost in the Pershing Point Hotel, was also adapted into a film. In 2004, he performed his one-man stage comedy Like a Dog on Linoleum on a national tour to generally positive reviews.

Joe Patrick Ward composed the music and lyrics for Jordan’s first autobiographical theatrical performance, entitled Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life Thus Far. Off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse, Leslie Jordan was supported by a gospel choir singing satirical songs about racism and homophobia. The play ran for seven months. Next, he condensed his experiences as a little, effeminate boy growing up in the South and in show business into an autobiographical one-man performance titled My Trip Down the Pink Carpet. Jordan’s microphone failed during the opening of My Trip Down the Pink Carpet, but he continued with the concert as if nothing had happened; the performance was a success. The production premiered off-Broadway at the Midtown Theatre on April 19, 2010, following a national tour of many months. The show was produced by Lily Tomlin, a friend of Jordan’s. Jordan stated on The Paul O’Grady Show that he would be performing at the Apollo Theatre in London.

Death

On October 24, 2022, about 9:30 a.m. (PDT), Jordan passed away after his car collided with a building near the intersection of Cahuenga Boulevard and Romaine Street in Hollywood. The crash was suspected to have been caused by a medical emergency. Jordan was determined to be deceased at the scene.