"Spread the word, dear. Omar is back."

And the whistle echoes through the streets of Baltimore as if they were part of the soundtrack of a city ravaged by precariousness, drugs and crime.

Three-quarter coat, sagging pants, headscarf and scar across the face.

It cannot be another, it is Omar Little.

In the life, which has ended this Monday, of Michael K. Williams (Brooklyn, 1966) there is a before and after of his passage through the streets of Baltimore and of playing one of the best non-villains in the history of television on

The Wire

. Because in the character of Omar Little there is room for almost all possible positive registers of the human being despite his past as a criminal: compassion, loyalty, sacrifice and morality. The criminal who stole from criminals

While that character, raised by his grandmother, who imposed her strict moral controls on him, will remain forever in the collective imagination as one of the great characters in the history of fiction series, the life of his actor, Michael K. Williams, It ended this Monday in New York City. As reported by various US media, the interpreter has been found dead in his apartment in the city where he was born 55 years ago.

For the Williams legend, there will also remain the iconic death of a disruptive character due to his homosexuality in a strongly retrograde and masculinized environment such as the underworld of Baltimore in the late 90s and early 2000s. Omar enters a store of persecuted Koreans by little Kenard, who is never seen entering after him. Suddenly, a gunshot ends his life.

It is the murder of the idol since the boy in a previous chapter of the fiction had already shown his intention of wanting to become the new Omar in the future. Almost like that of former President Barack Obama, who in a public intervention, commenting on the successful series that HBO aired between 2002 and 2006 portraying the precarious life of African Americans in the state of Maryland: "He is not my favorite person, but he is a character fascinating". That is part of the greatness of Omar Little, the forgiveness of any of his sins because the end is the most important thing.

But Michael K. Williams' career, totally overshadowed by the outsized figure of Omar Little, goes far beyond

The Wire

.

There they are his Chalky White in Boardwalk Empire and his testimonial presence in an episode of The Sopranos as Ray Ray, an episode that was his gateway to HBO, where everything else would come.

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