Wendell Pierce, actor

Published: Oct. 27, 2019, noon

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Wendell Pierce is an American actor best known for his role as Bunk Moreland in the television series The Wire. Since the series ended in 2008, he has made around 40 film and television appearances, including Treme, Selma and the legal drama Suits, in which he played Robert Zane, the father of Rachel Zane, played by Meghan Markle. His theatre credits range from The Cherry Orchard to Death of a Salesman.

Born in 1963, the youngest of three sons, Wendell grew up in the Pontchartrain Park area of New Orleans, which was the first middle-class African-American suburban-style development in the city. He graduated from the prestigious Juilliard School in New York and his career got off to a flying start with a small part opposite Tom Hanks in a film called The Money Pit. He hasn\\u2019t been out of work since.

In 2005, Hurricane Katrina destroyed Wendell\\u2019s childhood home in New Orleans and he was instrumental in rebuilding his parents\\u2019 house in Pontchartrain Park. He also built 40 new homes and staged a production of Waiting for Godot on an empty street corner in one of the most devastated districts of the city.

He is currently reprising his role as Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman on stage in London.

DISC ONE: Jim Henson - Bein' Green (Featuring Kermit The Frog)\\nDISC TWO: Wynton Marsalis - Green Chimneys\\nDISC THREE: Funkadelic - One Nation Under a Groove (Part 1)\\nDISC FOUR: Mahalia Jackson - Take My Hand, Precious Lord\\nDISC FIVE: Joni Mitchell - Both Sides Now\\nDISC SIX: Solomon Burke - Don't Give Up on Me\\nDISC SEVEN: Aaron Copland - Appalachian Spring (Doppio Movimento), performed by New York Philharmonic\\nDISC EIGHT: John Coltrane - A Love Supreme Part I: Acknowledgement\\n \\nBOOK CHOICE: The Omni-americans: Black Experience And American Culture by Albert Murray.\\nLUXURY ITEM: A multi-burner barbecue grill\\nCASTAWAY'S CHOICE: Take My Hand, Precious Lord by Mahalia Jackson

Presenter: Lauren Laverne\\nProducer: Cathy Drysdale

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