Granville Adams obit

Granville Adams Dies: ‘Oz’ Star Was 58

 

He was not on 

Granville Adams, who portrayed Zahir Arif in HBO’s Oz, died after a battle with cancer. He was 58.

The news was confirmed on Sunday by multiple friends including Oz‘s showrunner/executive producer Tom Fontana, and costars Kirk Acevedo and Harold Perrineau.

“I lost my brotha today after a long battle with cancer,” Acevedo shared via Twitter. “I don’t do well with loss because I’m unfamiliar with it. Yo Granny we’ll be chopping it up on the other side one day. Until then… Rest easy my friend.”

Added Perrineau via Instagram, “You can’t always cry, sometimes you’ve got to CELEBRATE the time you had together. Brittany and I LOVE this man and the entire group of family/friends that we all created. Sleep well Prince! We’ll see each other again.”

Fontana wrote, “Goodnight, sweet prince/and flights of angels sing thee to they rest #granvilleadams #oz”

Adams documented his battle on social media with his last post shared from what appears to be his hospital room in August.

Fontana and actor Dean Winters launched a GoFundMe campaign in Feb. to help alleviate Adams’s medical debut which raised nearly $100k.

Adams appeared in all six seasons of Oz, first in a guest role and was later upped to recurring. He also appeared on NBC’s Homicide: Life on the Streets, and Fox’s Empire. He played the role of Scout in 2011’s Magic City Memoirs.

On February 4, 2007, Adams was arrested and charged with criminally negligent homicide for the death of a man in a nightclub. According to police reports, Adams got into an altercation with Orlando Valle at BED New York, a Manhattan nightclub of which Adams was a manager. He was accused of pushing Valle against the elevator doors of the sixth floor club, causing the doors to become unhinged and Valle to fall down the shaft to his death. According to Adams' attorneys, Adams was trying to break up an altercation between a patron and an employee when Valle attacked Adams from behind and Adams acted in self-defense by throwing Valle off of his back. Adams was released on $5,000 bail and faced up to four years in prison.[2] BED New York has since closed down due to the incident. On June 30, 2007, a judge dropped the charges against Adams. Valle's family filed a civil suit against Adams.