A star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was unveiled Thursday honoring actor Keith David, who received the accolade on his 70th birthday.
“All my life I wanted to be an actor,” he told the crowd. “I started out as a singer, then I wanted to be a preacher, then I wanted to be a lawyer, and I wanted to be a bank president when I watched ‘Topper’ on TV. … And I discovered that I could be an actor and be all those things.”
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Keith David poses with his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Lewis, Contributing Photographer)
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Keith David poses with his new star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Thursday, June 4, 2026. (Photo by Jacob Lewis, Contributing Photographer)
Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, filmmaker John Carpenter, actors John C. McGinley and Lynn Whitfield and LA Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez were among those joining David at the ceremony next to the Pantages Theatre.
Carpenter directed David in the 1982 science fiction horror film “The Thing” and the 1988 science fiction action horror film “They Live.”
David and McGinley were castmates in three films — 1986 anti-war film “Platoon”; the 1992 comedy-drama “Article 99”; and the 1996 drama “Johns.” They were also castmates in the 1993 made-for-television movie, “The Last Outlaw.”
David and Whitfield were castmates in the 2003 Chris Rock-starring political comedy “Head of State” and the 2016 film about slavery and the underground railroad, “The North Star.” They also co-starred as husband and wife in the 2016-20 Oprah Winfrey Network drama “Greenleaf.”
The star is next to the star of Nat King Cole. David portrayed the legendary singer in the touring theatrical and musical tribute shows “Too Marvelous for Words: A Celebration of Nat King Cole” and “Let There Be Love.”
“What you’re bearing witness to today is a man living his dream,” David said. “Today is a great day, filled with gratitude and blessings overflowing. But even on my not-so-great days, I’m still living my dream. Nobody said it would be easy, and many days it ain’t. But every opportunity I get to have a job and go to work, it’s not just a manifestation of me living my dream, but it’s also an opportunity for me to bring some joy into somebody’s life. That’s what we get to do.”
The star is the 2,847th since the completion of the Walk of Fame in 1961 with the initial 1,558 stars.
Born June 4, 1956, in Harlem and raised in the Corona neighborhood of the New York borough of Queens, David once said, “I wanted to be an actor when I was 2 years old.”
David graduated from Manhattan’s High School of Performing Arts in 1975 and the Juilliard School in 1979. In 1980-81, he toured the country with John Houseman’s The Acting Company in productions of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Waiting for Godot.”
David’s other early career credits include nine episodes of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” as Keith the Handyman from 1983-85.
David’s other film credits include “Dead Presidents,” “Armageddon,” “There’s Something About Mary,” “Requiem for a Dream,” “Pitch Black,” “Barbershop,” “Crash,” “The Chronicles of Riddick,” “Cloud Atlas,” “The Nice Guys” and “Nope.”
In 2024, he received an outstanding performance by a cast in a motion picture Screen Actors Guild Awards nomination for his work in “American Fiction.”
David’s television credits include recurring roles in “ER” and “Community.”
David has received acclaimed for his work as a narrator and voice in animation. He received two Emmys for outstanding voice-over performance for “Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise And Fall Of Jack Johnson” in 2005 and “The War” in 2008.
When the category was separated in 2014 into outstanding narrator and outstanding character voice-over performance, he won for outstanding narrator in 2016 for “Jackie Robinson.”
David has provided voices for such animation projects as “The Princess and the Frog,” “Gargoyles,” “Rick and Morty,” and “Family Guy.”