Some actors are admired, and many enjoyed, but Leslie Jordan, who died unexpectedly Monday, had the rare gift of being beloved. His presence in a series, whether in the main cast, a recurring role or as a guest, was not necessarily alchemical, but it would elevate every moment he was onscreen. He was, to be sure, good at what he did; a long career of steady work on stage and television and in the movies testifies not merely to his ability but to his flexibility.
At the same time, he was never not to some degree himself; most every role offered a combination of Leslie Jordan and whoever else he was supposed to be. That’s how it is with the best character and comic actors — they embody types, even as they prove endlessly useful, and you are glad to see the player, like an old friend at your door, even as you believe in the part.
In recent years, he dropped the parts and just played himself, finding unexpected greater fame with a pandemic-inspired series of Instagram posts in which he sang, danced, told stories, acted silly and let you into pieces of his actual life. (He had 5.8 million followers at the time of his death.) A new twist on an older practice, expressed in memoirs — “My Trip Down the Pink Carpet,” and “How Y’all Doing?: Misadventures and Mischief from a Life Well Lived” — and one-man shows such as “Like a Dog on Linoleum” and “Hysterical Blindness and Other Southern Tragedies That Have Plagued My Life” — it felt of a piece with the rest of his work, a confirmation of what one already felt about him.
