Keith Jefferson is dead. The actor passed away yesterday, Thursday (October 5, 2023) aged just 53, after being diagnosed with cancer last August.
Jefferson’s death comes a week before the premiere of his new film “The Burial,” which premieres October 13 exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. Jefferson was best known for numerous roles alongside his good friend Jamie Foxx (Oscar for ‘Ray’), who expressed his pain over the loss on social media (see below).
That was Keith Jefferson
Born on April 7, 1970 in Houston, Texas, Jefferson took a long time to find his way in front of the camera – celebrating his debut as an uncredited police officer in Herbert Ross’ road movie “Coffee, Milk and Sugar” (1995). ). After smaller roles in the crazy comic book adaptation “Tank Girl” (1995) alongside Ice-T and Naomi Watts and the TV movie “Buffalo Soldiers” (1997) with Danny Glover, Jefferson finally met Jamie Foxx in the late 1990s – what not? shaped not only his professional career, but also his life.
He eventually appeared in two episodes of the sitcom ‘The Jamie Foxx Show’, also known here as ‘The Hotel Boy’. Most importantly, a close, decades-long friendship developed between Jefferson and Foxx during filming – eventually leading to the two regularly appearing on camera together. In addition to the aforementioned ‘The Burial’ (2023) and Netflix’s vampire actioner ‘Day Shift’, the duo can also be seen side by side in Quentin Tarantino’s ‘Django Unchained’ – Foxx in the title role, Jefferson as Pudgy Ralph.
While working on the Western tribute, Tarantino also came to appreciate Jefferson — and eventually made him one of his regular actors, landing smaller roles in his later films “The Hateful Eight” (2015) and “Once Upon A Time In.” Hollywood” (2019).
Most recently, Keith Jefferson collaborated on Jamie Foxx’s star-studded directorial effort.All Star weekendin front of the camera – which also stars Gerard Butler, Robert Downey Jr., Benicio Del Toro, Eva Longoria and Snoop Dogg. There are now doubts whether the film, which was shot a few years ago, will ever be released. So it’s entirely possible that we’ll see Jefferson for the last time in “The Burial.”
Jamie Foxx: “We will miss you”
After Jefferson showed himself willing to fight the disease together with his family behind him after his diagnosis, Foxx now expresses great pain that it was ultimately lost:
“This hurts,” the Oscar winner wrote in an Instagram post to which he added a final photo of the two together. “We will miss you very much. It will take a while for me to get over this. Goodbye my friend. I love you.”