Isiah Whitlock Jr., actor from The Wire, dies at 71

Whitlock played openly corrupt city councilman Clay Davis on 25 episodes across the five seasons of “The Wire.”

Isiah Whitlock Jr., an actor who made frequent memorable appearances on the HBO series “The Wire” and “Veep” and in the films of Spike Lee, died Tuesday. He was 71.

Whitlock’s manager Brian Liebman told The Associated Press in an email that the actor died in New York after a short illness.

Whitlock played openly corrupt city councilman Clay Davis on 25 episodes across the five seasons of “The Wire.”

Davis, a fan-favorite character, was known for his profane catchphrase — “sheee-it” — delivered by Whitlock in moments of triumph and blunt honesty. The actor first used the phrase in his first film with Lee, 2002’s “The 25th Hour.”

“The Wire” creator David Simon posted a photo of Whitlock on Bluesky in tribute.

Whitlock is the second significant star of the show to die in recent weeks after the death of actor James Ransone.

A native of South Bend, Indiana, Whitlock went to Southwest Minnesota State University, where he played football and studied theater. Injuries pushed him to study acting, and he moved to San Francisco to work in theater.

He began appearing in small television guest roles on shows including “Cagney and Lacy” in the late 1980s, and he had very small roles in the 1990 films “Goodfellas” and “Gremlins 2: The New Batch.”

He also had a recurring role on HBO’s political comedy Veep as Secretary of Defense Gen. George Maddox and was a series regular on Showtime’s legal thriller Your Honour, where he played a politician with ties to organised crime.

Whitlock’s final television role was as a series regular portraying the Chief of Police opposite Uzo Aduba in Netflix’s White House murder mystery The Residence, which premiered in March.

He went on to appear in five of Lee’s films, including “She Hate Me,” “Red Hook Summer,” “Chi-Raq,” “BlacKkKlansman” and “Da 5 Bloods.”

He played Secretary of Defence George Maddox for three seasons on the political satire “Veep.” The character ran against Julia Louis-Dreyfus’s Selina Meyer in presidential primaries.