Michael Wright of the musical group The Five Heartbeats pose in the press room at the 2011 BET Awards at The Shrine Auditorium on June 26, 2011 in Los Angeles, California.

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Michael Wright, who starred in the films as The Five Heartbeats, The Principal and Sugar Hill, as well as the TV series V, has died.

The actor’s wife, Susan Wright, announced the actor’s death in a statement on Friday on Instagram. “It is with profound sadness and an unimaginable heaviness in my heart that I share the passing of my beloved husband, Michael Wright.”

Family members told TMZ in a statement that Wright died on Wednesday of heart failure and complications of Marchiafava-Bignami, which is a rare degenerative neurological disease. He was 70.

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“Many knew and loved him through ‘The Five Heartbeats,’ ‘The Wanderers,’ ‘V,’ ‘The Principal,’ ‘Streamers,’ and the many other characters he brought to life throughout his remarkable career," Susan Wright further wrote on Instagram. "His talent, presence, and contributions to film and television will live on, but to those of us who loved him personally, he was so much more than the roles the world knew him for.”

Directed by Robert Townshend from a screenplay by Townshend and Keenan Ivory Wayans, 1991’s The Five Heartbeats chronicled the fictional 1960s singing group of the same name. Wright plays Eddie King Jr., the group’s talented but troubled lead singer.

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In V, which began as a pair miniseries on NBC in 1983 and 1984 but became a regular series in 1984, Wright played Elias Taylor, one of the leaders of the Resistance after the First Invasion of aliens called the Visitors on Earth.

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In 1987’s The Principal, Wright starred opposite Jim Belushi and Louis Gossett Jr. as Victor Duncan, a gang leader and drug dealer at odds with Belushi’s high school principal Rick Lattimer. The actor also starred opposite Wesley Snipes in the 1994 crime drama Sugar Hill, where he and Snipes played as brothers Raynathan and Roemello Skuggs, a pair of drug dealers in Harlem.

Also on TV, Wright starred in a recurring role of inmate Omar Wright in the acclaimed HBO prison drama Oz, where he appeared in 22 episodes from 2001 to 2003.

Michael Wright Had More Than 70 Screen Roles

Born April 30, 1956, in New York City, Michael Wright’s screen debut was in director Phillip Kaufman’s 1979 crime drama The Wanderers, where he played a supporting role opposite Ken Wahl and Karen Allen.

Following his turn in the TV movies Fighting Back (1981), Dream House (1981) and Benny’s Place (1982), Wright landed the pivotal role of Elias Taylor in the V miniseries in 1983.

In 1984, Wright starred as Carlyle in director Robert Altman’s war drama Streamers, which chroniciles the friction between four young soldiers awaiting deployment to Vietnam in 1965.

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - JUNE 19: (L-R) Leon, Hawthorne James, Michael Wright, Tico Wells, Harry Lennix, Harold Nicholas, and Robert Townsend attend "The Five Heartbeats" premiere during the 2021 Tribeca Festival at Pier 76 on June 19, 2021 in New York City. (Photo by Monica Schipper/Getty Images for Tribeca Festival)

Getty Images for Tribeca Festival

Wright’s other film credits included Confessions of a Hitman, Point Blank, Piñerom Downtown: A Street Tale, Money Talks and The Interpreter.

Wright also appeared in guest roles on such series as Miami Vice, Nash Bridges, Stitch and Rel. The actor’s last screen appearance was in a starring role in the 2025 crime drama Dope King.

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