Glynn Russell Turman is an American stage, television, and film actor as
well as a writer, director, and producer. He is known for his roles as
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, and fictional Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the
HBO drama series The Wire. Glynn is recently playing Jeremiah Kaan on the
Showtime series House of Lies. Career
Turman had his first prominent acting role at the age of 13 as Travis Younger
in the Broadway play 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, he intensified his studies
at Manhattan's School of Performing Arts. Upon graduation he apprenticed in
regional and repertory companies throughout the country including Tyrone
Guthrie's Repertory Theatre in which he performed in late '60s 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. The show's theme song was sung
by his ex-wife, legendary "Queen of Soul" artist Aretha Franklin, to whom he
was married from 1978 to 1984. Glynn also played the leading role in JD's
Revenge. He began his film career in the 1970s
with such blaxploitation flicks as Five on the Black Hand Side, Thomasine &
Bushrod and Together Brothers, then progressed to roles in the cult classic
Cooley High, plus The River Niger, and A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich. TV
movies included Carter's Army, the prestigious Centennial, Attica, and
Minstrel Man, for which he won his third NAACP Image Award. 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, Gremlins,
Out of Bounds, Deep Cover, The Inkwell, How Stella Got Her Groove Back, Light It
Up and Men of Honor. 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. Since The Wire, Turman guest-starred as a patient in the Scrubs
episode "My Last Words". Turman's other television appearances include the
Twilight Zone segment "Paladin of the Lost Hour", 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 recently
appeared on 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."
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 2014, he acted in the Cowgirls 'n Angels movie Dakota's Summer.
Personal life Turman was born in New York, New York,
in 1947. According to a DNA analysis, he shares maternal ancestry with the Edo
people of Nigeria. Turman was married to Ula M. Walker,
from 1965 to 1971. From 1978 to 1984, Turman was married to Aretha Franklin.
Since 1992, he has been married to Jo-An Allen Turman.
References External links
Glynn Turman at the Internet Movie Database
Glynn Turman at the Internet Broadway Database
Glynn Turman on Yahoo! movies