R.I.P. Keith Jefferson: ‘Django Unchained’ Actor And Jamie Foxx’s Frequent Collaborator Dead At 53

By Samantha Nungesser @samjnungesser
Published Oct. 6, 2023, 9:18 a.m. ET

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Keith Jefferson, who appeared in movies like Django Unchained and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 53.

The actor passed away following a short battle with cancer — less than two months after publicly announcing he was diagnosed with the disease. Jamie Foxx, his close friend since college and frequent collaborator, took to Instagram to confirm the sad news.

“This one hurts,” he wrote. “Keith, you’ve been nothing but absolute grace your whole life. Your heart is pure, your love is immeasurable, you were an amazing soul. We will all miss you dearly. It’s gonna take a long time for this to heal. Goodbye, my friend. I love you.”

Foxx mourned Jefferson in another post, adding, “Everything hurts right now.”

“Having a hard time looking through these pictures reliving the memories of us having a great time. Going to miss you man, gonna miss you,” he continued. “Ever since we met back in college, you have been an incredible soul.”

According to his website, Jefferson was an actor, producer, voice-over artist and acting coach. He began working with Foxx in 1998 when he appeared on two episodes of The Jamie Foxx Show. In 2012, he played Pudgy Ralph alongside Foxx in Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained and was also credited with a role in Foxx’s 2022 action comedy Day Shift.

Jefferson later worked with Tarantino again on The Hateful Eight starring Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell, as well as the Oscar-nominated dramedy Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, which starred Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio.

Last month, the actor shared the trailer to his final project, The Burial, which he called his “most important role to date.” Loosely based on a true story, the film is about lawyer Willie E. Gary (Foxx) and his client Jerry O’Keefe (Tommy Lee Jones) — a struggling funeral home owner who sues a large funeral home company — exposing a “complex web of race, power and injustice,” per the logline.

“It’s finally here and what a blessing it was to work on this film with an amazing group of actors,” Jefferson wrote in his final Instagram post. “Foxx and Tommy Lee Jones along with an all-star cast and my most important role to date.”