The Paper's reporter Cheng Xiaojun
On September 24, local time, the Office of the Coroner of New York (OCME) finally announced the exact cause of death of actor Michael K. Williams: Williams, who won the love of countless audiences by playing the role of Omar in the popular American drama "The Wire of Fire", died of an overdose of fentanyl, flufentanil, heroin and cocaine.
On September 6, local time, Williams was found dead by his nephew at his home in Brooklyn, New York. After the news came out, although the police did not disclose the true cause of his death, the media had already learned from the surrounding population familiar with Williams's upbringing and living habits that he died of drug overdose. Looking back at Michael Williams' short life of 54 years, from pennilessness to fame to tragedy, it is really touching.
Michael Williams
Brooklyn kids' hip-hop dreams
Michael Williams was born on November 22, 1966, to an ordinary family in Brooklyn. Like many children born and raised in the area, he lived in a very ordinary low-rent house and attended an ordinary technical school. Years later, in an interview with the media, he fondly recalled his ordinary but restless childhood.
It turned out that the community where their family was located, because of the complex relationship between the sources of immigrants everywhere, was a battlefield for various gangs fighting each other for many years, so Williams had heard and witnessed many bloody fires and incidents since he was a child. Fortunately, his mother, who runs a children's daycare agency in the community on weekdays, has always disciplined him strictly, so Williams, even though he has been messing around in the streets since he was a child, has basically not caused any major trouble.
As a young man, his greatest interest was singing and dancing, with a particular adoration of Janet Jackson, who loved the black diva's 1989 album Rhythm Nation.
At the age of 23, Williams had already found a stable blue-collar job at Pfizer Pharmaceuticals, but he was not willing to live such an ordinary and ordinary life, so he simply quit his job and specialized in learning hip-hop despite his family's opposition. However, this life was clearly not basically guaranteed, and Williams, who had lost his source of income, was soon arrested twice for theft.
On November 22, 1991, coinciding with his 25th birthday, fate played another joke with him. That night, Shou Xinggong was drunk in a bar and a group of friends, and when he stood up for a friend, he misjudged the situation and was vaguely involved in a vicious fight. The other party spat out a piece of razor hidden under the tongue and pulled a long slit in Williams' face. In American slang, a wound like this is called "one hundred and five," meaning that 150 stitches are needed to heal. It mostly occurs in gang fires and occasions, and the purpose is to leave permanent and indelible scars on opponents.
Williams was quickly sent to the emergency room, and it is impossible to verify how many stitches he had, but fortunately, he had an optimistic personality, and when he walked out of the operating room, he told himself: This is not a big deal, just like a acne on his face! He even joked with people: "I'm from the same place as singer Seal, which is the symbol of our African tribe!" Before the stitches were completely removed, Williams returned to the dance studio to continue to learn to dance, and at the end of the year, she also made a part-time job at the Express credit card company, and temporarily had an income.
In the following years, he finally came to work while learning to dance, and he was given many opportunities to dance in music videos. The scar on his face, instead of blocking Williams's dream of stardom, made him look cooler and more stylish, and the shooting experience of these dozens of MVs also allowed him to gradually touch some of the doorways of performance.
In 1996, rap singer Tupac Shakur funded the film "Bullet" starring Mickey Rourke, and in the sign-up photo of a bunch of audition actors, he took a look at Michael Williams with a scarred face, and chose him to play the role of a gangster in the film, which also opened the way for the ordinary actor.
Stills from The Wire of Fire
Obama's "Favorite American Drama Character of My Life"
In the years that followed, Michael Williams studied acting at La Mama Theatre, a famous experimental small theater in New York's East Village, and later at the National Black Theater, a nonprofit folk theater company in Harlem, to gain further experience.
However, in 2000, he was discouraged and left the theater, giving up his dream of continuing to be an actor. Williams returned to Brooklyn and worked as a deputy at her mother's daycare. After almost two years of muddled up, he found that he still couldn't let go of his former ideals. On Christmas Day 2001, he borrowed $10,000 from his mother, produced detailed self-recommendation materials, and distributed them to a number of brokerage companies, but the results were lost in the sea and the return was slim.
In March of the following year, he finally received a fax from the office of casting director Alexa Fogel, saying that it was a series called "The Line of Fire" and that he was going to play a gangster role called Omar. In the summer of 2002, "The Wire of Fire" was launched on HBO, and although it was praised by critics from the beginning, the ratings were not very high at first. In that era before the birth of streaming media, fortunately, there was also the existence of the medium of DVD, so that a large number of audiences who did not see "Firewire" for the first time seized the opportunity to be late, appreciate the excitement of this high-quality American drama, and also discover michael Williams's unconventional wonderful performance.
Omar, played by Williams, was one of the most brilliant characters in the first season of "The Line of Fire", became one of the "top ten reasons why we still love to watch American dramas" written by the "USA Today" reporter, and became the "favorite American drama character of life" personally admitted by Obama, who was a congressman at the time.
After the end of "The Wire of Fire", Williams starred in highly acclaimed film and television works such as "Sex is Evil", "Sin Night's Run", and "Colored Glasses".
Stills from "Sex Is Evil"
This year, he was also nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for Devil's Land. Originally, such a posthumous nomination could easily earn sympathy points, but when Williams died suddenly, the Emmy Voting had been closed, and the award ended with Tobias Menkis of "The Crown".
Stills from Devil's Land
I think that in that year, "The Line of Fire" made Williams famous overnight and earned the first pot of gold in her life. However, he claims to be very bad at managing wealth, but he wastes a lot of money on unnecessary luxuries. According to himself, during the filming of the third season in 2004, he contracted a cocaine addiction. In a 2012 interview with the media, he claimed to have quit drugs, recalled the experience, saying: "I knew it was playing with fire, I knew that one day it would be known, it would become lace news in the gossip tabloids, and my acting career would end, and I might even go to jail or simply die of drug overdose." Looking back now, I thought about it, I was really addicted to drugs at that time, and I don't know how I saved my life. ”
In an interview with the American media ten years ago, he was also asked this question: "After many years, when you are no longer in this world, what kind of person do you want everyone to remember Michael Williams?" ”
"I just want you to remember that I was a cool boy and a loving person." The last thing I want is to hear someone say, 'Oh, this guy forgot his roots, forgot where he came from.' That would hurt me. Williams replied.
Editor-in-charge: Cheng Yu
Proofreader: Liu Wei