Memorial Page for Michael Clarke Duncan

Michael Clarke Duncan (born 10 December 1957 in Chicago, Illinois; died 3 September 2012 in Los Angeles, California) was an American actor. He came to film late and by a roundabout route: for years his build had found him work before it found him parts. As John Coffey in The Green Mile he reached audiences worldwide in 1999 and was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor — the gentlest figure in the film belonged to the largest man in it.

Chicago

Michael Clarke Duncan grew up in Chicago with his sister Judy, raised by their mother Jean Duncan, who worked as a house cleaner. His father had left the family. As a boy he wanted to play football for the Chicago Bears; his mother forbade it, afraid he would be injured. He decided to become an actor instead. It is the first of several moments in this life in which a detour turned out to be the actual direction.

He played basketball at Kankakee Community College and, for one season, for the Alcorn State Braves. He dropped out of the communications programme at Alcorn State University when his mother fell ill and the family needed his income. He dug trenches for the gas utility Peoples Energy and worked as a bouncer in Chicago clubs.

The man who protected other people

In Los Angeles Duncan took security work while trying to get commercials and small parts. He worked as a bodyguard — for Will Smith, Martin Lawrence, Jamie Foxx, LL Cool J and The Notorious B.I.G. When the rapper was killed in 1997, Duncan left the personal protection business.

His first parts were the ones his appearance suggested: bouncers, among others in Bulworth and A Night at the Roxbury. They were roles that served exactly what people saw in him.

Armageddon — and a colleague who put in a word

In 1998 Michael Bay cast him as Bear in Armageddon. On set he became friends with Bruce Willis, and it was Willis's influence that got him the part which changed everything. Duncan never made a secret of it: the decisive door into his profession opened not through an audition but through a colleague who spoke up for him.

John Coffey

In 1999, in Frank Darabont's The Green Mile, Duncan played John Coffey opposite Tom Hanks — a condemned man of enormous strength and even greater gentleness, who takes the pain of others onto himself. The role brought him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a Golden Globe nomination; he won the Critics' Choice Award, the Saturn Award and the Black Reel Award.

The film opened in American cinemas on 10 December 1999 — Duncan's 42nd birthday. At the 72nd Academy Awards on 26 March 2000 he sat among the nominees for Best Supporting Actor; the award went to Michael Caine.

The casting inverts the expectation his appearance created. Duncan stood 1.96 metres tall, and Hollywood had until then cast him as a threat. Coffey is the opposite of a threat.

A face — and a voice

Afterwards Duncan appeared in films that established him for action and comedy alike: The Whole Nine Yards (2000), Planet of the Apes (2001), The Scorpion King (2002) and Daredevil (2003), in which he played Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin. In 2005 came The Island and Sin City, where he played Manute. Roger Ebert singled out Duncan's few scenes in The Island: they were of central importance, he wrote, and Duncan brought true horror to them. In 2006 he appeared in Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.

His deep voice became a second career. He spoke in Brother Bear (2003) and its sequel, in Kung Fu Panda (2008) and as Kilowog in Green Lantern (2011). In video games he voiced the Titan Atlas in God of War II, along with characters in Soldier of Fortune, SOCOM II, The Suffering and Saints Row.

Main cast for the first time

On television Duncan was long a guest: in CSI: NY, Chuck, The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and twice in Two and a Half Men. On 21 April 2011 he played the investigator Leo Knox in the Bones episode "The Finder", a backdoor pilot. It became the spin-off series The Finder, which premiered on 12 January 2012 with Duncan continuing as Leo Knox. It was the first time he belonged to the main cast of a series, billed second behind Geoff Stults, who played the title character Walter Sherman. Fox cancelled the show after one season. It fell in the last year of his life. The Bones episode "The Partners in the Divorce", broadcast three weeks after his death, was dedicated to him.

In 2009 Duncan stopped eating meat and later spoke publicly about what he had experienced himself: better health and greater strength. He trained Brazilian jiu-jitsu at the Gracie Academy in Torrance and held a purple belt.

Honours

• 2000 Critics' Choice Award, Best Supporting Actor, for The Green Mile
• 2000 Saturn Award, Best Supporting Actor, for The Green Mile
• 2000 Black Reel Award, Best Supporting Actor, for The Green Mile
• 2000 Academy Award nomination, Best Supporting Actor, for The Green Mile
• 2000 Golden Globe nomination, Best Supporting Actor, for The Green Mile
• 2000 Screen Actors Guild Award nominations — as a supporting actor and with the cast of The Green Mile

Farewell

On 13 July 2012 Michael Clarke Duncan suffered a heart attack and was taken to the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He died there on 3 September 2012 at the age of 54.

The memorial service was held on 10 September 2012 at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills and lasted almost four hours. Tom Hanks spoke, as did Jay Leno, Holly Robinson Peete — who had first met Duncan when he was still a bodyguard — and Loretta Devine. Stevie Wonder appeared by video at the piano, and the wrestler Mark Henry was a pallbearer. Among those present were his mother, his sister and his nephews, along with David Boreanaz and Geoff Stults, his colleague from The Finder.

Frank Darabont, who had cast him in The Green Mile, called him a fierce warrior and the gentlest of souls, adding that no one had a more positive spirit than Michael Clarke Duncan. Stephen King, on whose novel the film was based, sent a letter: No one has ever done a character I wrote more justice.

He was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park. The bronze plaque at his crypt reads: Beloved son, brother, uncle, friend and actor. You blessed the world with your talent. Your smile will forever brighten the heavens. We love you.

Two of his films opened only after his death: In the Hive in December 2012 and A Resurrection the following year. The video game Saints Row IV credited him in memoriam in 2013.

What remains is a body of work that began with bouncer parts and ended with him joining the main cast of a series for the first time — and the memory of a man whose size everyone saw at once, and whose gentleness you only heard when he spoke.