The legacy of late comedian Leslie Jordan

Leslie Jordan was a comic actor who rose to fame during the pandemic for his quirky home videos that attracted millions of Instagram followers after a late start in his acting career. He was killed on Monday in a car accident in Hollywood, California. He was best known for his roles on “Will & Grace” and other popular television shows. He was 67.

The death was confirmed by David Shaul of the BRS/Gage Talent Agency, who was his agent. According to news sources citing the police, Mr. Jordan evidently had a medical issue before his car smashed into the side of a building. The Los Angeles Police Department’s spokesman acknowledged that a person in a BMW died after striking a wall in Hollywood around 9:30 a.m., but he would not release the victim’s name.

Mr. Shaul described Mr. Jordan as “not just a mega-talent and joy to work with, but he provided an emotional refuge to the nation at one of its most trying moments.”

During the pandemic, Mr. Jordan made a startling entry into the world of viral videos. He started posting vignettes on Instagram — brief, humorous anecdotes from his life — while spending Covid-19 in Tennessee, close to his family and was startled to see his following soar into the millions. Although he had more than 130 television and film credits, so he wasn’t exactly unknown, the Instagram success at the age of 65 was a pleasant surprise.

He stated to The New York Times in 2020, “I’ve liked the attention, craved it my whole career, and I’ve never gotten this type of attention.”

Additionally, he discovered that his role as their supporters’ de facto comforter had changed.

However, he added, “What I enjoy is when someone takes me aside and says, ‘Listen, I’m sorry to disturb you, but I’ve had a tough time. I’ve been restrained. I had children, and I eagerly anticipated your updates. You really, truly helped me get through this difficult period. When people say stuff like that, you understand how crucial comedy is.”

Mr. Jordan was naturally funny, but it took him some time to realize that he wanted to be a performer. He was short enough—under five feet—that in his 20s, he tried to become a jockey. But in his mid-20s, he abandoned that plan, graduated with a theater degree, and traveled to Hollywood by bus in 1982.

A gay actor like Mr. Jordan struggled for a while to obtain employment, but he eventually started landing roles, first in commercials.

In the 2020 interview, he referred to the Progressive Insurance salesperson as “Flo,” saying, “I was like Flo.” “People would know who I am. I worked for PIP Printing. I worked for Taco Bell as the elevator operator to Hamburger Hell, where people who didn’t eat tacos went.”

From guest appearances on shows like “The Fall Guy,” “Murphy Brown,” and “Newhart” to recurring parts on shows like “The People Next Door,” “Top of the Heap,” “Reasonable Doubts,” “Hearts Afire,” and others, he started to get TV jobs in 1986.

In the comedy “Will & Grace,” which was about the friendship between a gay lawyer and a straight interior designer living together in a New York City apartment, he made a particularly strong impression. Mr. Jordan played the sarcastic socialite Beverley Leslie in the latest relaunch as well as the 2001 original series.

For the part, he was awarded an Emmy in 2006 for outstanding guest actor in a comedy series. Allen and Peggy Ann Jordan gave birth to Leslie Allen Jordan on April 29, 1955, in Memphis, Tennessee. He was raised in Chattanooga, Tennessee. As conspicuous a feature of his resume as his height was his Southern drawl.

Mr. Jordan claimed that he was gay from an early age and that he had been “on the prance ever since,” going straight from his mother’s womb into her high heels.

Leslie’s family was traditional, and his Army-serving father, who passed away in an aircraft crash when Leslie was 11 years old, worried enough about Leslie’s effeminacy to send his son to an all-boys summer camp one year. Awards were given out while the parents and guardians watched at the camp’s parents’ day in 2020, as Mr. Jordan recalled to The Times.

He added, “So here’s one for the best swimmer, here’s one for the best horseback rider, and here’s one for the greatest archer, and I didn’t win anything. And according to my mother, my dad was getting worse and worse.”

But soon, someone from the staff handed Leslie a trophy and said, “This is for the greatest camper overall. Although he wasn’t the best at anything, this kid sure did make us chuckle.

Despite his love of horses, he concluded he wasn’t cut out to ride.

In 2021, he stated in the British newspaper The Telegraph, “People believe it’s a size or something.” It’s unrelated to it, I’m afraid. You need to weigh around 104 pounds, and honey, my ass weighs 104 pounds by itself.

He claimed that his mother had pinned $1,200 into his underwear when he made the decision to join show business. He then had to choose between moving to New York or Hollywood from Tennessee.

“I wanted to starve with a tan if I was going to starve,” he remarked. He moved westward.

He acknowledged in his 2008 book “My Trip Down the Pink Carpet” that being gay would hurt his chances of success in Hollywood.

I made the decision to ‘butch it up’ and conceal any indications that I was a Big Homo, he wrote. I am without a doubt the gayest man I know, which is funny.

The parts came rapidly once he started getting them, but Mr. Jordan also struggled with substance abuse.

He told The Guardian in 2021, “I encourage people: If you want to get clean, try 27 days in the L.A. men’s county jail.” He overcame his alcohol and crystal meth addictions at the age of 42.

His survival was not immediately known, though.

The majority of Mr. Jordan’s work was on television, but he also occasionally played in films, such as “The Help” (2011). Along with his debut book, he also frequently performed a one-man stage act called “My Trip Down the Pink Carpet.” It was a compilation of autobiographical short stories.

In one notable comment, he admitted, “I am a high school cheerleader caught in a 55-year-old man’s body.” “If you cut me open, Hannah Montana would jump out,” the person said.

When the program debuted in New York in 2010, David Rooney wrote a review of it for The Times.

Numerous LGBT rites-of-passage tales are repeated here, according to Mr. Rooney: hostile small-town surroundings (Chattanooga, Tennessee); sternly macho father; humor as protection against bullies; unrequited loves; drug and alcohol dependence; internal homophobia; weakness for physical trade. However, Mr. Jordan’s openness gives them a new perspective.

With recurring parts in the TV shows “American Horror Story,” “Call Me Kat,” “The Cool Kids,” and “Living the Dream,” Mr. Jordan was in high demand in recent years. He released a second book in 2021 titled “How Y’All Doing? Mishaps & Mischief from a Well Lived Life.