Nelsan Ellis

Nelsan Ellis (November 30, 1977 – July 8, 2017) was an American film and television actor and playwright. He was well known for his role as Lafayette Reynolds in the HBO series True Blood, which he played from 2008 until the series' completion in 2014, and for starring as Bobby Byrd in the 2014 James Brown biopic Get on Up. 2Early life Ellis was born in Harvey, Illinois, near Chicago. 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. 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. He joined the United States Marines at the age of 17, but quit not long afterwards. Following this, Ellis attended Illinois State Universit