Nelsan Ellis (November 30, 1977 – July 8, 2017) was an American actor and playwright. He achieved critical acclaim for his portrayal of Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO television series True Blood (2008–2014), for which he won a Satellite Award from the International Press Academy, among other accolades. He also starred as Shinwell Johnson in Elementary from 2016 to 2017, and played a variety of guest roles in other television series, including Veronica Mars and Without a Trace.\n', '

In addition to his television work, Ellis appeared in several feature films throughout his career; he portrayed Eddie Sweat in the Disney sports drama Secretariat (2010), as Martin Luther King, Jr. in Lee Daniels\' The Butler (2013), and as Bobby Byrd in the 2014 James Brown biopic Get on Up. His final acting role was in True to the Game, which was released posthumously.\n', '

Ellis was born in Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago, the son of Jackie Ellis and Tommie Lee Thompson. When Ellis and his siblings were younger, their mother, a single parent after her divorce from her husband, broke down over the death of her brother. Ellis and his siblings became wards of the state as a result. They were then raised in Bessemer, Alabama, by their grandmother. He was diagnosed with Dyslexia at second grade. In Alabama, Ellis attended Jess Lanier High School for a year, then transferred to McAdory High School. He moved back to Illinois at age 15, where he lived with his maternal aunt, and in 1997 he graduated from Thornridge High School in Dolton, Illinois.\n', '

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