Leslie Jordan, the goofy character actor perhaps best known for his Emmy-winning turn as Beverley Leslie, the cynical foil to Megan Mullally’s Karen Walker, on Will & Grace, has died. He was 67.
Jordan was at the wheel of a BMW when he crashed into the side of a building at Cahuenga Boulevard and Romaine Street in Hollywood on Monday morning. He was declared dead at the scene and could have suffered a medical emergency beforehand.
Jordan recurs as Phil, the gay baker at the café owned by Mayim Bialik’s character, on the Fox sitcom Call Me Kat, which returned for its third season last month. He appeared in all five of the new season’s episodes so far.
His other recent work includes turns on FX’s American Horror Story — playing different characters over three seasons — and on the 2018-19 Fox sitcom The Cool Kids.
The 4-foot-11 Jordan, a native of Memphis, Tennessee, first showed up as the socialite Beverley during the third season of NBC’s Will & Grace in 2001 and returned for the show’s reboot in 2017, appearing on 17 episodes of the series in all. He won his Emmy in 2006.
Will & Grace star Sean Hayes lamented his death on Twitter, calling Jordan “one of the funniest people I ever had the pleasure of working with.”
Jordan also recurred from 1993-95 as Lonnie Garr on the Linda Bloodworth-Thomason-Harry Thomason created CBS series Hearts Afire, starring John Ritter and Markie Post.
In another notable role, he played Earl “Brother Boy” Ingram on the stage and reprised the character — a cross-dressing homosexual obsessed with Tammy Wynette — for the 2000 indie film written and directed by Del Shores and for a 2008 series. Both the movie and TV show featured Olivia Newton-John.
He also stood out as the newspaper editor Mr. Blackly in The Help (2011), directed by Tate Taylor.
Jordan’s popularity grew during the pandemic, when his silly Instagram posts grew his followers to 5.8 million. He recently rang in the new year with Andy Cohen and Anderson Cooper on CNN, appeared on Fox’s The Masked Singer and guest-hosted on The Talk.
“For someone 65 years old to all of a sudden be, like, an internet star?” he said in a 2020 interview with The New York Times. “I’ve loved attention, wanted it my whole career, and I’ve never gotten this kind of attention. I mean, even on Will & Grace, winning an Emmy, it wasn’t anything like when you have social media. When you’ve become a success there, it’s unbelievable.”
(Excerpt) Read more in: The Hollywood Reporter