GENERATIONAL TALENT

‘The Five Heartbeats’ Star Dies Aged 70

The actor is being remembered as “an extraordinary artist whose work touched generations.”

Longtime actor Michael Wright has died aged 70 after battling a rare disease. Wright died in Los Angeles after suffering heart failure and complications from Marchiafava-Bignami, an uncommon degenerative neurological disease, his family told TMZ. The New York City native was best known for playing the talented yet troubled singer Eddie King Jr. in the 1991 musical drama The Five Heartbeats. Wright began acting in the late 1970s, landing a breakout role in The Wanderers before appearing in Robert Altman’s Streamers and The Principal. His television credits included V, Miami Vice, New York Undercover and Black Lightning. Wright’s wife, Susan, remembered him as an “extraordinary artist whose work touched generations.” “His talent, presence, and contributions to film and television will live on,” she wrote, calling his death an “enormous and deeply personal loss.”