Gary Dourdan Biography | Gary Dourdan Television Actor | Gary Dourdan News

Gary Dourdan Bio

Gary Dourdan

Gary Dourdan was one of the first African American actors to wear dreadlocks on television. Unfortunately, his look caused him to only be accepted for roles of pimps and drug dealers.

While his earlier, wild years abusing alcohol and drugs shortly after he graduated from the performing arts school, Freedom Theater in Philadelphia, may have helped him act these roles convincingly; this was not the vision that Gary had for his career.

When the six foot two, green-eyed star decided to cut off his dreadlocks during a trip to Egypt, he discovered that his lock-free head was a deterrent to him getting a significant amount of acting roles. For a while he was short on acting work, but used that time to write and produce music. He is an accomplished musician who plays the guitar, piano, flute, bass, drum, and saxophone.

Gary was born as Gary Robert Durdin (He changed his surname when he started acting) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on December 11, 1966. He is the second youngest of five children of jazz musician agent, Gary Durdin and fashion designer, Sandy Durdin.

At the age of six Gary suffered the tragedy of losing his twenty-three-year-old brother, Darryl, to murder. Darryl was pushed to his death off a motel balcony in Haiti while on a trip to research the French lineage of his father. Haitian authorities had no motive or suspects and the case still remains unsolved.

When Gary went through what he calls the "reckless period" of his life (ocurring after he finished performing arts school), he only cleaned up his act when he was robbed at gunpoint in Miami. At that moment, he has said, he realized with shame that he had done nothing with his life, and decided to clean up. So he started doing regional theater off Broadway while working several jobs as a DJ, doorman at a rehearsal studio, and cook to make ends meet. He also ventured into modeling for several magazines.

In 1991 while on vacation in Paris with his girlfriend, Roshumba Williams, he met and started sending tapes to Debbie Allen, the actress and director of the Cosby spin-off television show A Different World. Gary got his first big break when Debbie Allen was impressed enough with a tape of him in an avant-garde play that she cast him as the role of con-artist Shazza Zulu on the show.

In 1992 Gary married Roshumba and had a daughter, Nyla. The two divorced in 1994. Gary also has a son named Lyric from another relationship.

It was after Gary finished acting in A Different World that he decided to go dreadlock-free. For several years Gary continued acting but had very few significant roles, with the exception of his role as Christie in Alien Resurrection in 1997. In 2000 Gary starred as Malcolm X in the television biography, King of the World and he has said that playing this part is the highlight of his career.

In 2000 Gary also landed the role of Warrick Brown in the television show CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. Interestingly enough, he had previously worked with another CSI star, Marg Helgenberger, in a made-for-television movie called Keys to Her Past five years before the 2000 premiere of CSI. In 2003 Gary received a NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for his role as Warrick Brown.

On July 2, 2005, Gary performed with rapper DMC at the Live 8 Concert in Barrie, Ontario, Canada. The concert featured several other musicians and was organized to focus on world poverty. The same year Gary also recorded a track called "Machine Gun" with DMC.

YUDDY