How did David McKnight die? Late ‘JD's Revenge' and 'The Hollywood Shuffle' star was 87
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA: David McKnight, who starred in Robert Townsend's 'Hollywood Shuffle', 'The Five Heartbeats', and the blaxploitation horror picture 'JD's Revenge', among other films, died on Sunday, December 3, at the age of 87.
Reports state that McKnight died in Las Vegas from cancer. The actor was a TV mainstay in various character roles, appearing on shows like 'Dynasty', 'Benson, Kojak', 'Hill Street Blues', and 'The Incredible Hulk,' as reported by Deadline.
McKnight portrayed dead hustler in 'JD's Revenge'
In the 1976 film 'JD's Revenge', McKnight portrayed a dead hustler from New Orleans who assumes the body of Glynn Turman, a college student and pursues the man responsible for his and his sister's murders thirty years prior.
In Townsend's 'The Hollywood Shuffle', McKnight was cast as Uncle Ray, a singer-turned-barber who inspires Bobby Taylor, Townsend's actor, to follow his acting ambitions.
Later, McKnight played Pastor Stone in the Townsend-directed 1991 film 'The Five Heartbeats' and played a parent in a 1995 episode of the Warner Bros sitcom, 'The Parent 'Hood', which Townsend co-created.
McKnight was born in Mound Bayou
McKnight was born in Mound Bayou, Mississippi, and relocated to Chicago with his family when he was four years old. He went to Wilson Junior College in his hometown after graduating from Wendell Phillips Academy High School, where he first learned acting. After that, he worked as a police officer while serving in the American Army.
'Bird of the Iron Feather', the first all-Black TV soap opera, debuted in 1970 on Chicago's WTTW. McKnight starred in it. 'Lifeguard' (1976), Michael Crichton's 'Coma' (1978), 'A Taste of Hemlock' (1989), 'Pump Up the Volume' (1990), 'Pizza Man' (1991), and 'Under Siege' (1992) are among the films McKnight worked in.
More recently, he co-starred alongside Vivica A Fox in the online series 'A House Divided' (2019–23) and the telefilm 'A Husband for Christmas' (2016).
He is survived by his brother James, and a daughter.
