'Little' Melvin Williams, Drug Kingpin Who Inspired 'The Wire,' Dead At 73

"Little" Melvin Williams, the infamous Baltimore drug kingpin whose rise to power was one of the inspirations for HBO's "The Wire" and who also appeared as an actor on the show, died Thursday at the age of 73. 

Williams told his friends that he was suffering from cancer, the Baltimore Sun reported. 

Williams, who was born in Baltimore on Dec. 14, 1941, ruthlessly built a drug empire that stretched across West Baltimore in the 1960s, moving more heroin than anyone in the city had before. At one point, Williams bragged that he had sold $1 billion worth of narcotics over his lifetime. According to a 1987 series of articles on Williams by "The Wire" creator David Simon, his organization was, for a time, responsible for more than a quarter of all the murders in the city of Baltimore. 

Simon has since cited Williams as one of the figures in Baltimore crime history that inspired the character of Avon Barksdale, played by Wood Harris, on "The Wire." 

Though Williams' methods for eluding law enforcement were, like those of drug lords Stringer Bell and Marlo on "The Wire," remarkably sophisticated, his criminal activity eventually caught up to him. Ed Burns -- a Baltimore police officer who would later be a key writer for the HBO series arrested him in 1984 following a wiretap investigation much like the one in Season 1 of the show. Williams served many years of his life in federal prison, on a host of charges.

According to the Baltimore Sun, Williams said that he found God in prison and renounced his violent past. He was released from prison for the last time in 2003. 

After Williams' release, Simon tapped him to play the character of The Deacon in several episodes of Season 3 and Season 4 of "The Wire." The Deacon's kindly persona couldn't have been more different from Williams' reputation on the streets of Baltimore.

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