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David Downing (actor)

American actor (1943-2017)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionJul 11, 2026
Entity authorityQ3017798
Source-derived summary

David Downing was an American stage, film, and television actor. He was one of the original members of the Negro Ensemble Company in New York City.

Downing, a native of Harlem, New York City, attended the High School of Performing Arts. As a child actor, he made his professional debut on Broadway in The Green Pastures. He served a tour of duty with the U.S. Armed Forces in Okinawa.

As part of the Negro Ensemble Company in the 1960s and 70s, Downing appeared in productions including the Obie Award-winning musical The Great MacDaddy, and the successful play Ceremonies in Dark Old Men. Downing later appeared in the Pulitzer Prize-nominated play, Miss Evers' Boys.

Downing appeared in films, including Gordon's War, and numerous television shows, including The Jeffersons, Baretta, Backstairs at the White House, and Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.

Downing died in Los Angeles on November 1, 2017, at the age of 74.

Editorial summary

“David Downing (actor)” enters the record as american actor (1943-2017). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what David, Downing and actor can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive starting point for separating a subject’s documented career from later reputation and commemoration. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2017—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1943-07-21. Its strongest next move is a source search built around David, Downing and actor.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“David Downing (actor)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, David, Downing and actor provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 11, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3017798. VIAF identifies the subject as 4766104. The Library of Congress control number is nr00000189. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

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Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from David Downing (actor)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.