David Alan Grier

David Alan Grier, born June 30, 1956, in Detroit, Michigan, is an American actor and comedian whose career spans Broadway, film, and television. He is one of three children born to Aretas Ruth Grier, a school teacher, and William Henry Grier, a psychiatrist and writer who co-authored the 1968 book Black Rage. Grier attended Roeper City and Country School in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, and later graduated from Detroit's Cass Technical High School. He earned a B.A. in radio, television, and film from the University of Michigan in 1978, followed by an M.F.A. from the Yale School of Drama in 1981.

Grier made his Broadway debut in 1981, appearing in Dreamgirls as James "Thunder" Early. His next stage role, Jackie Robinson in the Broadway musical The First, directed by Martin Charnin and written by Joel Siegel, earned him a Tony Award nomination for Best Featured Actor in a Musical and a Theatre World Award in 1982. He also provided the voice of a nameless fighter pilot in the National Public Radio drama adaptation of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back in 1981. His film career began in 1983 with Robert Altman's Streamers, for which he won the Volpi Cup for Best Actor at the Venice Film Festival. He subsequently appeared in A Soldier's Story (1984), reprising a role he had first performed in the Negro Ensemble Company's stage production of A Soldier's Play.

Grier's Broadway work continued across several decades. He returned to the stage in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum in 1996, and later appeared in the David Mamet play Race in 2009, playing Henry Brown opposite James Spader and Kerry Washington, a role that brought him another Tony nomination. His portrayal of Sporting Life in the Broadway revival of Porgy and Bess in 2012 earned him a third Tony nomination. In 2020, he won the Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play for his work in the Broadway revival of A Soldier's Play, completing a decades-long arc with that material.

On television, Grier rose to wide prominence as a cast member of the sketch comedy series In Living Color, which ran from 1990 to 1994 and won an Emmy for Outstanding Variety Series. Among his recurring characters were Antoine Merriweather of the "Men on..." sketches, blues musician Calhoun Tubbs, shop teacher Al MacAfee, and prison inmate Tiny. He also played Reverend Leon Lonnie Love on the Fox comedy series Martin from 1993 to 1997. Subsequent television roles included Bernard on Damon (1998), Jerome Dagget on DAG (2000–2001), David Bellows on Life with Bonnie (2002–2004), Joe Carmichael on The Carmichael Show (2015–2017), the Lion in The Wiz Live! (2015), and Hal on A Series of Unfortunate Events (2018). He created and executive-produced the Comedy Central satirical series Chocolate News in 2008. He currently plays Ron on the NBC sitcom St. Denis Medical, which began in 2024.

His film credits include Boomerang (1992), Jumanji (1995), Baadasssss! (2003), Bewitched (2005), They Cloned Tyrone (2023), The Color Purple (2023), and The American Society of Magical Negroes (2024). In 2004, Comedy Central ranked Grier number 94 on its list of the 100 Greatest Stand-Ups.