Glynn Turman Movies and Career Information

Glynn Russell Turman (born January 31, 1947) is an American stage, television, and film actor as well as a writer, director, and producer. He is perhaps best known for his roles as high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom A Different World, and fictional Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series The Wire. Turman was born in New York City. He had his first prominent acting role at the age of 12 as Travis Younger in the Broadway play of Lorraine Hansberry's classic A Raisin in the Sun, opposite Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil and Diana Sands. While he did not play the role when it transferred to film in 1961, he intensified his studies at Manhattan's School of Performing Arts Upon graduation he apprenticed in regional and repertory companies throughout the country including Tyrone Guthrie's Repertory Theatre in which he performed in late 60s productions of "Good Boys," "Harper's Ferry," "The Visit" and "The House of Atreus." He made his Los Angeles stage debut in Vinnette Carroll's "Slow Dance on the Killing Ground." An impressive 1974