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Keith David (born June 4, 1956 ) is a character actor.
He was born in Harlem, New York City in 1956 and first knew he was going to become an actor after playing the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz and went on to study at New York's High School of the Performing Arts.
His first acting job was an uncredited role as a disco club patron in Disco Godfather in (1979), but it was his starring role as Childs less than two years later when he went on to star opposite Kurt Russell in John Carpenter's The Thing that bought him attention as an actor.
He went on to appear in films such as They Live, Platoon and Stars and Bars. His role in They Live is most memorable for an alleyway brawl with Roddy Piper that is the longest fight sequence in cinema history, lasting nearly seven minutes onscreen. In the early 1990s he received a Tony Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical.
He played the character of Kirby the one legged war veteran in the acclaimed 1995 Hughes brothers film Dead Presidents and followed this up wih roles in big films such as Volcano, Armageddon, There's Something About Mary, Pitch Black and Agent Cody Banks.
He has also appeared extensively in TV productions since the 1980s and as a regular character Lieutenant Williams on the TV series The Job.
Although known for his roles in films and TV, he has also done extensive voice-acting work, most notably the character of Goliath from Gargoyles and the title character in the Spawn animated series. His voice narrated the 2001 Documentary series Jazz by Ken Burns and is also popular in advertising.
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