CNN
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Clarence Gilyard, the actor finest identified for taking part in pc hacker Theo in “Die Laborious” and naval flight officer Marcus “Sunset” Williams in “Prime Gun,” has died on the age of 66.
His dying was introduced on Monday in an announcement from the College of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the place he had been working as an affiliate professor on the Faculty of Effective Arts.
“It’s with profound unhappiness that I share this information,” Dean Nancy Uscher stated within the assertion shared on Instagram. “His college students had been deeply impressed by him, as had been all who knew him. He had many extraordinary abilities and was extraordinarily well-known within the college by means of his dedication to instructing and his skilled accomplishments.”
UNLV movie chair Heather Addison remembered Gilyard as a “beacon of sunshine and power for everybody round him at UNLV.”
She added: “Each time we requested him how he was, he would cheerfully declare that he was ‘Blessed!’ However we’re really those who had been blessed to be his colleagues and college students for therefore a few years. We love you and can miss you dearly, Professor G!”
No additional particulars surrounding his dying have been made public.
In accordance with UNLV, Gilyard ventured into appearing after finding out Theatre Arts at California State College. He landed his first position on the TV present “Diff’hire Strokes” in 1981.
In 1986, Gilyard made his movie debut in “Prime Gun,” wherein he performed Sunset, one of many elite fighter pilots.
Two years later, he was forged as Theo, the pc knowledgeable who helps Hans Gruber’s terrorist group, within the thriller “Die Laborious.”
He bought his large primetime TV break in 1989, when he landed the position of Conrad McMasters on the NBC authorized drama “Matlock,” starring reverse Andy Griffith. He then portrayed Chuck Norris’ crime-fighting accomplice Jimmy Trivette on “Walker, Texas Ranger.”
Gilyard’s appearing credit additionally embody “The Karate Child Half II,” “CHiPS” and the “Left Behind” movies.
Regardless of his achieved appearing profession, Gilyard stepped away from appearing in 2006 to start out instructing at UNLV and directing productions on the college’s Nevada Conservatory Theatre.
“I’m wired to show. And I’m an expert, however the career has to feed the classroom. It’s what stimulates my characters as a result of I’m in contact with individuals’s lives within the twenty first century,” he instructed the Las Vegas Overview-Journal in 2017.
“I work finest as an artist once I’m in a fertile area. Which means inventive and imaginative. Being with all these millennials — I don’t perceive what they’re saying however I’m siphoning off their power.”
He did, nevertheless, make a quick return to the display screen in 2021, when he reunited with Bruce Willis and De’voreaux White for a “Die Laborious” battery business.