David Downing (actor)
American actor (1943-2017)

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.
“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.
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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.