Michael Clarke Duncan, 1957-2012
via Michael Clarke Duncan — Planned To Wed Omarosa in January | TMZ.com.
Michael Clarke Duncan and Omarosa Manigault were secretly engaged and the wedding was set for this January, TMZ has learned.
Sources connected with the couple tell us, Michael and Omarosa kept the engagement a secret from the media … only telling very close friends and family about the pending nuptials.
We’re told the couple had just started planning for the wedding when Michael went into full cardiac arrest July 13 and was hospitalized until his death.
His gravelly baritone was well-suited to everything from animated films to action spectacles, but no matter the role, a warmth and a sweetness was always evident underneath.
The prolific character actor, whose dozens of movies included an Oscar-nominated performance as a death row inmate in “The Green Mile” and box office hits including “Armageddon,” ‘’Planet of the Apes” and “Kung Fu Panda,” died Monday at age 54. And although he only turned to acting in his 30s, it’s clear from the outpouring of prayers and remembrances he received across the Hollywood and sports worlds that his gentle-giant persona made him much-loved during that relatively brief time.
Duncan died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he was being treated for a heart attack, said his fiancée, reality TV personality Rev. Omarosa Manigault, in a statement released by publicist Joy Fehily.
Duncan “suffered a myocardial infarction on July 13 and never fully recovered,” the statement said. “Manigault is grateful for all of your prayers and asks for privacy at this time. Celebrations of his life, both private and public, will be announced at a later date.”
Tom Hanks, star of 1999’s “The Green Mile” — the film that earned a then-little-known Duncan a supporting-actor nomination at the Academy Awards — said he was “terribly saddened at the loss of Big Mike. He was the treasure we all discovered on the set of ‘The Green Mile.’ He was magic. He was a big love of man and his passing leaves us stunned.”
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MCD was a great personality and a fine actor, and I recently enjoyed his brief stint on the new Finder series – though it was not picked up. RIP, Michael.
One may be awfully tempted to joke about his wedding plans … but perhaps not just now.
I also enjoyed his other appearances such as the one in Scorpion King.
RIP.
Am I the only one who noticed that, while some “ghetto” folks find it important to “look dangerous”, black guys who REALLY ARE dangerous-looking body-building types are, far more often than not, the nicest and most polite folks?
If your a man and live in a dangerous place you have to deal with the reality of violence. Part of that is the universal bluff of acting like a baddass, part of that is being ready to fight and part of that is moving the eff out of there when you can.
I enjoyed everything I ever saw him in. RIP.
That’s a shame. He had a mischievous smile, and seemed like a gentle giant in interviews. His weepy, emotionally fragile character on Armageddon made me laugh. RIP