“Who’s the baddest mofo around?!! Sho-nuff!” Remember that classic character? Actor Julius Carry brought “Sho-nuff” the hood Samaurai, to life like nobody else could have. Truth be told, he stole every scene he was in and when he had ‘the glow’ and put that death grip on “Bruce Leroy’s” hand, everybody knew he was the villain that you didn’t wanna step to. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for Carry’s “Sho-nuff'” character, The Last Dragon would have probably been lost in the wind and buried with the likes of other cult classics like the 80s movie, Beat Street.
Here is the thing that many people didn’t know- Julius Carry actually passed away 7 years ago from pancreatic cancer. He was only 56 years old and was still a working actor.
His death was slightly covered in the mainstream media, but not much. Maybe the world was still so much in shock at the news that the legendary Isaac Hayes died suddenly 10 days earlier than Carry on August 10th, 2008, that the news about the death of Carry’s, who is a legend in his own right, kind of flew right under the radar after he passed away on August 19, 2008. So we wanted to bring his life and death to the forefront once again for those of us who may not have caught the news that day and to do our part to pay our respect to the brotha.
Carry didn’t have any children and he was survived by his wife, Naomi.
Although we primarily know Carry as “Sho-nuff,” he actually had a pretty lengthy career and was one of the most underrated versatile actors around. He got his start in acting through “Hamlet” stage plays and after getting his film start in the 1979 film, Disco Godfather, starring Rudy Ray Moore, Carry went on to have a solid acting career not only with the Last Dragon, but he also had recurring roles in popular TV shows like Two Guys And Girl, Boy Meets World, Grown Ups, The District, Cosby, Murphy Brown, It’s A Living and Duet.
Carry had a ton of guest roles under his belt as well, over 100 to be exact, in shows including Hill Street Blues, Jag, Spin City, The Hughleys, and Moesha.
At the time of his death, Carry was actually still working on Disney’s Boy Meets World, but once he passed away they wrote into the show’s script that his character, “Sgt. Alvin Moore” had also passed away.
Actor, Taimak, who played the Last Dragon’s lead role of “Bruce Leroy,” recently shared a funny story about how he and Carry almost ended up getting into a REAL fist fight behind the scenes of the movie, because Carry walked around the set the entire time in character and used to intentionally try to piss him off. He said that Carry wasn’t doing it for the fun of it, but that he was doing it to keep the tension going between the characters so that every time the cameras rolled, the tension seemed real and that much more intense. Carry’s plan worked. Taimak said that he used to brush Carry off when he would try to push his buttons, but then one day Carry must have struck a nerve in Taimak that we wish we could have been a fly on the wall to witness. See Taimak share that story below…
We’re not sure why that production never saw the light of day, but for whatever reason it was canned. It would have been interesting to see Samuel Jackson with ‘the glow’ and fighting off “Bruce Leroy,” but it probably wouldn’t have been the same without Carry’s touch (no diss to Jackson, he’s a helluva actor, but some things just don’t need to be changed).
Actors like Julius Carry will forever be etched into the fabric of our culture and we’re grateful that we were able to have lived in a time to witness him create magic on film and leave a lasting memory in our hearts. May he continue to rest well.
-ILoveOldSchoolMusic, old school news with a new point of view
