Nelsan Ellis, who played sassy short-order cook Lafayette Reynolds on HBO's True Blood, has died at 39 of complications from heart failure.
His manager, Emily Gerson Saines, confirmed his death on Saturday to USA TODAY.
"He was a great talent, and his words and presence will be forever missed," she said in a statement.
While he also had roles on CBS' Elementary and worked in films like The Help, Secretariat, the James Brown biopic Get On and The Soloist, to fans of True Blood, he will always be Lafayette.
The Illinois-born actor so impressed the producers and fans of the HBO supernatural drama with his performance that the TV version of Lafayette escaped the early death the character was dealt in Charlaine Harris' books.
Alan Ball, who adapted her novels, and directed many episodes of the show, said in a statement, "Nelsan was a singular talent whose creativity never ceased to amaze me. Working with him was a privilege."
True Blood marked Ellis' second HBO project. He also appeared in 2005's Emmy-winning Warm Springs, in which his character tended to the polio-stricken Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Kenneth Branagh).
The network issued a statement noting, "Nelsan was a long-time member of the HBO family whose groundbreaking portrayal of Lafayette will be remembered fondly within the overall legacy of True Blood. Nelsan will be dearly missed by his fans and all of us at HBO."
The True Blood family mourned him on Twitter Saturday.
"It was an utter privilege to work with the phenomenally talented and deeply kind soul .@OfficialNelsan," wrote Anna Paquin, whose waitress character, Sookie Stackhouse, was close with Ellis' cook. "I'm devastated by his untimely death."
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Elie Wiesel, Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize-winning author, at a news conference in Budapest, Hungary, in 2009.
Bela Szandelszky/AP
Holocaust survivor, Nobel laureate and author Elie Wiesel has died at the age of 87. Wiesel survived the World War II Nazi concentration camp of Buchenwald and death camp of Auschwitz. After liberation, he went to France, then Israel and the United States, where he advocated on behalf of victims of hate and persecution around the world.
Wiesel's son, Elisha, confirmed his death in a phone call with NPR.
"Elie Wiesel, of blessed memory, embodied the determination of the human spirit to overcome the darkest of evils, and survive against all the odds," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement. "His life was dedicated to the fight against all hatred, and for the sake of man as created in the image of God — he was a guide for us all."
Wiesel was called many things during his life: a messenger of peace, a humanitarian, a survivor. He liked to call himself simply a witness. And as a witness, he said, it was his duty to never let those who suffered be forgotten.
"To forget the victims means to kill them a second time," he told NPR. "So I couldn't prevent the first death. I surely must be capable of saving them from a second death."
Wiesel spoke out for victims of war and political tyranny around the world. But it was his advocacy on behalf of his fellow Holocaust survivors that was the work of his life.
Never forget
When he was just 15, his family was taken from a small town in Romania to Auschwitz and later to Buchenwald.
His younger sister and mother were sent immediately to the gas chambers. Wiesel's father died shortly before the camp was liberated by U.S. soldiers in 1945.
It took Wiesel 10 years before he could write about his experience in his most famous book, Night.
"Never shall I forget that night that first night in camp that turned my life into one long night. Never shall I forget the small faces of the children whose bodies I saw transformed into smoke under a silent sky. Never shall I forget those flames that consumed my faith forever," he read from his book during a trip back to Auschwitz with Oprah Winfrey in 2006. "Those moments that murdered my god and my soul and turned my dreams to ashes. Never."
Children and other prisoners liberated by the U.S. Army march from Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945.
Byron H. Rollins/AP
Wiesel lived in France immediately after the war and worked as a journalist before immigrating to the U.S. in 1956. He became a citizen seven years later and in 1985 he received one of the highest honors awarded a civilian, the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement. The soft-spoken Wiesel took advantage of the highly public occasion by making an impassioned plea to then-President Reagan not to visit a cemetery where SS soldiers were buried.
A year later Wiesel received the Nobel Peace Prize. The Norwegian committee called Wiesel a messenger to mankind. A man, who it said, climbed from utter humiliation to become one of our most important spiritual leaders and guides. In his acceptance speech, Wiesel said the world should never remain silent while humans suffer, because neutrality, he said, only aids the oppressor, never the victim.
"Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented," he said. "Sometimes we must interfere. When human lives are endangered, when human dignity is in jeopardy, national borders and sensitivities become irrelevant."
Greatest roles
Despite all the accolades and honors, Wiesel said he was happiest in his role as a teacher. He taught at several U.S. institutions, including New York's City University and Boston University.
At an annual visit to the Chapman College in Orange County, Calif., Wiesel sat in front of a rapt group of religious studies students in the school's small Holocaust remembrance library. Most asked him questions about Judaism and his public struggles with faith during difficult times.
"I still have questions for God and I still have problems with God, absolutely," he told the students. "But it is within faith, not outside faith, and surely not opposed to faith."
Later that day, Wiesel said he felt privileged to receive such warm welcomes and so many honors.
"Look, honors are very, very pleasant to receive, but it all depends what you do with them," he said. "If simply to use them for your own benefit then you're not worthy of it."
In his later years, Wiesel refused to slow down, even after quintuple-bypass surgery and the loss of his personal and philanthropic foundation's fortune to Bernie Madoff's Ponzi scheme. In 2012, he wrote his last book, Open Heart, touching on both experiences.
But Wiesel said his greatest role in life was as a witness, and he found great comfort among those like himself who witnessed the Holocaust. He said he worried who would be its last witness, who would have that burden.
"But to listen to a witness is to become a witness and that consoles us," he said.
And it consoled him, he said, to know that many have listened and there are many more generations of witnesses, ready to stand guard against tyranny and hate — long after he is gone.
CorrectionJuly 2, 2016
In an earlier Web version of this story, we incorrectly stated that Elie Wiesel received the Congressional Medal of Honor. In fact, he received the Congressional Gold Medal of Achievement.
Additionally, the audio version, as did a previous Web version, incorrectly identfies Buchenwald as a death camp. In fact, it was a concentration camp.
Addendum Aug. 15: A previous caption included Elie Wiesel among the children and other prisoners pictured being liberated from Buchenwald. NPR has since determined that it is not certain Wiesel was in that group.
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Remember to visit the Dead Celebrity Alert Blog, a searchable database of obituaries back to 2001:
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