
Boardwalk Empire actor Devin Harjes dies aged 41 after cancer diagnosis
Boardwalk Empire star Devin Harjes has died aged 41, just months after he was diagnosed with cancer.
The actor, who was also known for his role in Manifest and appeared in the likes of Daredevil, Gotham and Orange Is The New Black, was diagnosed with the disease in winter 2024.
His representative has confirmed he died on May 27 after complications from cancer.
Harjes had been receiving treatment at New York City's Mount Sinai West Hospital.
His spokesperson told NBC News in a statement: 'He was an artist of great conviction who never gave less than one hundred percent to any role he undertook.
'As a person, he was generous, kind, understanding and devoted to his family and friends, a great horseback rider and had a magic way with all animals.'
After starting his acting career in Dallas-Forth Worth, Texas, he moved to NYC and starting performing in off-Broadway productions and independent films.
Harjes then made the switch to television, taking on the role of Jack Dempsey in Boardwalk Empire.
He went onto make guest appearances in the likes of Blue Bloods, Orange Is The New Black, Gotham, Daredevil and Elementary.
His online obituary reads: 'Outside of acting, Devin was a dedicated student of martial arts and a regular at the gym — he often joked it was safer than getting kicked in the face by a horse.'
The tribute continues: 'Devin is survived by his loving parents, Randy and Rosanne Harjes; his sister Trish Harjes and her husband Justin Kelley; nephews Tristin and Sawyer Kelley; nieces Rory and Charly Kelley; his former wife Shiva Shobitha; his beloved cat, Maude; and countless friends whose lives were brighter…or at least more entertaining…because of him.'
Meanwhile, his family of asked that in lieu of flowers, mourners can donate to TKC Blessings in his name.
They added: 'All proceeds will support scholarships for children pursuing the arts—Devin's true passion in life.' More Trending
Filmmaker Debra Markowitz paid tribute to Harjes on Instagram, as she wrote: 'Way too young. RIP Devin.'
And director Antonio DiFonzo said on Facebook: 'Terribly sad news as we lost Devin Harjes, an amazing actor and friend. He was constantly striving to be better and put his heart and soul into everything he did!
'We will never forget you and your amazing part in The Boyz of Summer and our lives. Rest in peace, Lion Heart!'
Got a story?
If you've got a celebrity story, video or pictures get in touch with the Metro.co.uk entertainment team by emailing us celebtips@metro.co.uk, calling 020 3615 2145 or by visiting our Submit Stuff page – we'd love to hear from you.
MORE: Inside Hugh Jackman's relationship with Sutton Foster after ex-wife's Deborra-Lee Furness' 'betrayal' statement
MORE: Pregnant Rihanna 'playing hide the bump' in sizzling Savage X Fenty lingerie photoshoot
MORE: Rihanna's father Ronald Fenty dies aged 70
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles


NBC News
2 hours ago
- NBC News
Navy will rename the USNS Harvey Milk, named for LGBTQ rights pioneer
A Navy vessel named after celebrated gay rights activist and Navy veteran Harvey Milk will no longer carry his name. NBC News confirmed with the Navy that the USNS Harvey Milk, a fleet replenishment oiler, will be renamed. No reason was given. The news comes during Pride Month, the dedicated time to acknowledge and celebrate the achievements and contributions of the LGBTQ community. After years of devoted activism in San Francisco and across California, Milk became one of the country's first openly gay elected officials, winning a position on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors in 1977. In 1978, he and Mayor George Moscone were fatally shot at City Hall. His killer, Dan White, a former city supervisor, was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to less than eight years in prison in 1979, sparking a mass protest that turned violent. Milk was portrayed by Sean Penn in the 2008 film 'Milk,' for which Penn won an Academy Award. The USNS Harvey Milk is a 2021 vessel designed to support other ships at sea. The USNS Harvey Milk was introduced in a class of several ships named after civil rights figures, including the USNS Thurgood Marshall, USNS Ruth Bader Ginsberg, USNS Dolores Huerta, USNS Harriet Tubman, USNS Cesar Chavez and USNS Lucy Stone. The group, or class, of ships is collectively called the John Lewis class, honoring the Georgia congressman and civil rights icon who died in 2020. Milk served in the Navy from 1951 to 1955, according to the National Archives. On the USS Chanticleer and the USS Kittiwake, he was an operations officer during the Korean War. In January, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a directive instructing the Pentagon and U.S. military services to abandon any cultural or awareness months. It was titled 'Identity Months Dead at DoD,' citing Women's History Month, LGBTQ Pride Month and Black History Month. Hegseth's Jan. 31 directive said: 'Our unity and purpose are instrumental to meeting the Department's warfighting mission. Efforts to divide the force — to put one group ahead of another — erode camaraderie and threaten mission execution.' Earlier this year, Hegseth also issued an order to restore the name of the North Carolina military base back to Fort Bragg. Its namesake was a Confederate general who owned slaves, and in 2023, the base was renamed Fort Liberty. Hegseth said the new Fort Bragg would be named to honor Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II veteran who earned a Silver Star and a Purple Heart.


Metro
3 hours ago
- Metro
Haunted doll's handler says it's not responsible for disasters while on tour
To view this video please enable JavaScript, and consider upgrading to a web browser that supports HTML5 video A cursed doll rumored to have gone missing while touring the US with a traveling exhibit is being blamed for local disasters including a fire and a jailbreak. The 'Annabelle' doll, which some believe is demon-possessed and was featured in The Conjuring horror films, is on a paranormal tour along with other items belonging to her ghost hunter owners. Word on the street in mid-May was that Anabelle vanished while stopping at the Ghost City Tours office in New Orleans. It happened to be the same week that a fire tore through a nearby plantation and 10 prisoners escaped from a jail. But Tony Spera, the owner of the Warren Occult Museum in Monroe, Connecticut, said that Annabelle is 'safely back' there locked in her display case. 'You know, it's easy for rumors to start. The fact of the matter is, that doll was never out of our sight, never out of our control,' Spera told NBC News this week. 'It's in a protective case that many precautions were taken to make it safe.' Paranormal investigator Ryan Buell sought to further quell rumors by posting a video on Facebook on May 24 of himself at the museum. 'She's not in Chicago, she never was in Chicago, and she's not missing because she's right behind me,' said Buell, while pointing the camera towards him with the doll sitting in the case over his shoulder. Still, social media users and conspiracy theorists have been skeptical about those accounts of Annabelle's whereabouts. A blaze destroyed the Nottoway Plantation House between Baton Rouge and New Orleans on May 15, and the very next day, inmates escaped from the Orleans Justice Center. Annabelle was touring in New Orleans on May 13 and 14, and among the precautions that were taken were having a Catholic priest alongside the doll. Some people are 'absolutely convinced' that Ghost City Tours is at fault for the fire and jailbreak, said its founder Tim Nealon. One Facebook user asked why Annabelle wasn't left at the Connecticut museum and wrote on Ghost City Tours' page: 'Did it cross your mind maybe she was there for a reason. Some things are better left alone.' 'I did not think people were taking it seriously, I kept seeing jokes about it on Instagram and TikTok,' Nealon told USA Today. 'But, I didn't realize people were out here like, actually thinking that this was legit.' More Trending Spera said he doesn't blame people for being skeptical. 'If people don't know about the demonic, it's very difficult to believe that these thing are happening,' he said. 'But they do happen.' Annabelle has been on sold-out tours across the US – and Buell said that plans are underway for her to be at the Rock Island Roadhouse Esoteric Expo in Illinois on October 4. Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at webnews@ For more stories like this, check our news page. MORE: Family business '£10,000 out of pocket' after Meta blocks their accounts for 12 weeks MORE: British journalist Charlotte Peet who vanished in Brazil four months ago has been found MORE: FDA tomato recall elevated to highest level due to salmonella risk


NBC News
4 hours ago
- NBC News
'The L Word' stars Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig are 'So Gay for You' in joint memoir
When 'The L Word' debuted on Showtime in January 2004, gays and lesbians couldn't serve openly in the military, employees could be fired for being gay in most of the country and no state had yet begun issuing same-sex marriage licenses. To say a series about glamorous and successful Los Angeles lesbians was groundbreaking at the time would be, inarguably, an understatement. The show's revolutionary nature is, in part, why it has remained so culturally relevant and iconic more than two decades after its premiere. And this, in turn, is why two of its biggest stars — Leisha Hailey and Kate Moennig — decided to undertake a joint memoir, 'So Gay for You,' released Tuesday. 'We wanted to give some 'L Word' real-life experiences that we had on the show, because we've been asked for the last 20-plus years, so we were like, 'Let's just tell everyone what that show was like for us,'' Hailey told NBC News in an interview with Moennig ahead of the book's release. Hailey, 53, and Moennig, 47, both had some level of success prior to 'The L Word,' but neither was where they wanted to be in their career before getting asked to audition for a show then titled 'Earthlings' back in the early aughts. In fact, Hailey was working at a sunglasses store in Los Angeles at the time, while Moennig had a bartending job lined up in New York. The two first met in 2002 on the 14th floor of a corporate office in L.A. to audition for the role of Shane McCutcheon, described as a 'womanizing serial monogamist.' Less than two weeks later, Moennig was offered the part. 'I'll never forget answering the phone and hearing my manager and agent on the line. Relief washed over me: I not only had a job, but one I actually wanted. I always feel like working is the vacation and trying to find the job is the job. For the first time in I couldn't remember how long, it felt like I could take a deep breath,' Moennig wrote in 'So Gay For You.' This wasn't the end of the line for Hailey, though. A week after her Shane audition, she was asked to return to read for another part: Alice Pieszecki, described as 'bubbly' and a 'comic relief character.' 'I really wanted this role—being Alice felt right. It's the closest to Cinderella I'll probably ever feel; the shoe just fit,' she recalled in the memoir. Hailey did, however, reveal that she initially turned down the role because it would have meant putting her band, The Murmurs, on the backburner. But she quickly came to her senses and accepted. 'Not Your Mother's Lesbians' 'The L Word' debuted four weeks before the 'Sex and the City' series finale, leading to the clever marketing slogan: 'Same sex, different city.' The press also had fun with its coverage of the 'vampy' new show, with headlines like ' Not Your Mother's Lesbians ' and ' Tizzy Over Lezzies.' The series centered on a group of eight friends, mostly lesbians, who were living, loving and working in Los Angeles. Jennifer Beals, who played power lesbian Bette Porter, was the sole household name among the main cast members, and Hailey was the only out lesbian. According to Showtime, 1 million viewers tuned in for the series premiere. 'Nothing like this has been done, which is a full group of full-on lesbians that are friends that you watch every day live their lives,' Hailey said, adding that 'nothing's taken its place' since. Moennig added that the show provided its audience with a more nuanced understanding of the lesbian experience, one that went beyond the butch-femme binary. 'It restructured what the lesbian community was perceived to be, and it gave a full portrait of these characters' lives, instead of just their sexuality being their sole identity marker or their coming out stories,' she said. Even as an out lesbian, Hailey said, she, too, was being educated about the community at the time. 'I had never met a group of lesbians like the ones we were playing … I was simultaneously learning that we could be more than what I thought we could be. It kind of broke me wide open,' Hailey said. 'The audience and we on the show were having the same experience, just from different sides.' During its six-season run, 'The L Word' touched on topics and storylines that were unfamiliar to many, if not most, viewers. These included same-sex parenting, gender transitions and closeted service members and athletes. Viewers were also introduced to the interconnectedness of the lesbian dating scene in Los Angeles through 'the chart.' The chart became such a phenomenon that the show's creator decided to spin it off into its own advertiser-supported lesbian social network, The New York Times reported in 2006. In 'So Gay for You,' Hailey revealed that the chart stemmed from a 'real diagram drawn in the writers room to illustrate the trope that all lesbians in a certain geographical area have — or probably will — sleep together.' In addition to the show's highlights, Hailey and Moennig also addressed some of the criticisms the series faced over the years. 'It was a sign of the times that we were in. The show was never out originally to hurt anyone's feelings or disparage anyone. It was just what one knew at the time, so it's a time capsule in that way,' Moennig said. In the memoir, Hailey looks back at 'Lisa the Lesbian Man,' a character Alice dated in the first season. Lisa, who was assigned male at birth and identified as a lesbian, was based on a real person, Hailey revealed. But looking back, Hailey said, some of those scenes with Lisa 'fill me with shame.' 'Lisa wasn't confused about her identity, but this tight — and otherwise progressive — friend group was. Lisa was misunderstood and repeatedly thrown under the bus in service of 'comedy,'' she wrote. 'I loved that my character had a relationship with her, but I wish I could go back in time and do Lisa justice.' Moennig and Hailey said filming 'The L Word' was both enjoyable and intense and, at times, downright unhinged. A member of the crew, they said, even referred to the set as 'gay camp,' which was particularly fitting since Moennig, Hailey and co-star Mia Kirschner, who played Jenny, all lived together at one point while working on the show. 'We would have the time of our lives one night and the next find ourselves in the throes of an emotionally charged, melodramatic argument that would put a sixteenth-century opera to shame,' Hailey wrote. It was around this time, she added, that Kirschner gave Hailey and Moennig their long-time nickname: Pants. 'You're like a pair of pants — you can't have one leg without the other,' Hailey recalled Kirschner telling them. End of an era After six seasons, 'The L Word' series finale aired in March 2009. It was the end of an era for the show's dedicated fans and for its stars. Moennig compared it to 'diving into an ice bath.' 'We just lived in this utopic gay bubble of creativity, and we come out of it thinking that the world has progressed along with us simultaneously to realize, 'Oh, it actually hasn't,'' she said. However, their friendship and their queer 'found family' continued to sustain them as they acclimated to their post-'The L Word' lives. The duo said they found community in their L.A. softball team, The Buzzsox, and formed a bit of a lesbian clubhouse at Hailey's home in the San Fernando Valley, where they had an open-door policy for their friends. 'My friends are my lifeline, and I also think when you're queer, you just relate to each other in a different way, because you understand the ups and downs of what we all go through all the time,' Hailey said. 'I would call Kate in the worst of times and the best of times.' Moennig said she and Hailey share a 'common spoken language.' 'I just get to be,' she said of their two-decade friendship. 'We get to move through life without having to explain ourselves all the time, and there's something really comforting about that.' Since the series wrapped 16 years ago, Hailey and Moennig have also kept busy with professional projects. The duo reprised their roles in 'The L Word: Generation Q,' which ran from 2019 to 2023, and they started their own podcast, 'PANTS With Kate and Leisha,' in 2020. Hailey also toured with her indie-pop band, Uh Huh Her, while Moennig starred in the police procedural 'Ray Donovan.' Now, with 'So Gay for You,' the longtime friends can add 'author' to their lengthy resumes.