Robert F. Chew, the actor who played as “Prop Joe” on the HBO series The Wire, has reportedly passed away. This news comes courtesy of his co-star Michael K. Williams.
A tribute photo of the deceased actor was shown on Williams’ Instagram profile. Williams wrote this message underneath the photo: “R.I.P. to the talented Mr Robert Chew #propjoe.”
Robert Chew not only starred on The Wire TV series. His IMDb profile notes that he appeared in the films Something The Lord Made, Jamesy Boy and MadMan? The Hassan Brooks Story.
He also starred on the TV shows Homicide: Life on the Street and The Corner.
Crew was known for being a highly respected acting coach. A City Paper article made note of this fact back in a 2006 article:
The task of workshopping the roles with the four actors [who played Michael, Randy, Dukie, and Namond in season four] fell to Burns and a familiar Wire face, actor Robert Chew, who plays the indelible Proposition Joe in the series. Since 1993, Chew has worked with the youth theater program at Baltimore’s Arena Players, the United States’ oldest still-active African-American community theater company; he’s currently its music director. And Chew saw his job as to help the actors find their roles inside themselves.
Another one of Crew’s co-actors, Tray Chaney tweeted about his death:
R.I.P To My Brother Robert F Chew AKA Prop Joe From The Wire …Love You Man You Gave Me Alot Of WISDOM @wirefans twitpic.com/bwb43g
— Tray Chaney (@traychaney) January 18, 2013
Crew was known for his humorous quips on the hit HBO TV drama.
Video footage of Crew’s work on the HBO TV series can be seen above.