Mack Chapman, better known to millions of television viewers as Grizz Chapman, died in his sleep after battling kidney disease for years. He was 52.
The Brooklyn-born performer’s death was confirmed by his representatives over the weekend. Chapman stood 7 feet tall and weighed 380 pounds, and his stature made his medical condition particularly difficult to treat. He had received a kidney transplant in 2010 but was in need of another by the time he passed away.
Agent Renee Glicker told multiple outlets that no official cause has been released, though she said she believed multiple factors contributed to his death. “For all seven feet, 380 lbs of him, he was a very sweet man who loved his family very much,” Glicker said in a statement.
Glicker described Chapman in his final stretch as “just struggling to stay alive.”
Saideh A. Brown, Chapman’s longtime representative, also confirmed the actor’s death, telling reporters that Chapman’s wife, Diana, and their two children were devastated.
A Decade of Dialysis Behind the Scenes
Chapman spent a year on dialysis while filming “30 Rock” — three days a week, four hours at a time — before receiving his 2010 kidney transplant. Audiences laughing at the Emmy-winning NBC comedy rarely knew he was waging a private war with his health throughout the show’s run.
He later became a spokesman for the National Kidney Foundation, using his public profile to push organ-donor awareness.
His cousin Donte Harrison, a Harlem Globetrotter, paid tribute on social media, saying Chapman “carried himself with resilience, humor, and heart despite the battles faced behind closed doors,” among them his own health battles and dialysis.
“A lot of people knew Grizz Chapman from his unforgettable role on ’30 Rock’ alongside Tracy Morgan,” Harrison told reporters in a statement, “but to our family, he was much more than a television star. He was somebody we looked up to.”
From Strip-Club Bouncer to NBC Star
Born in Brooklyn in 1974, Chapman was working as a bouncer at a strip club when he first crossed paths with Tracy Morgan. The two became friends, and Chapman — then earning a living as a bodyguard — landed a commercial that paid him handsomely enough to rethink his career.
“I made $20,000 for 40 minutes of work, so I thought I was in the wrong business at that point and I needed to change,” he told an interviewer in 2012.
The switch paid off. Chapman made his screen debut in 2006 on Tina Fey’s “30 Rock,” cast as Grizz Griswold, one of the imposing-but-tender bodyguards trailing Morgan’s larger-than-life character, Tracy Jordan. Network executives told Fey and Morgan they couldn’t afford all four hangers-on before the show even hit its stride, Chapman later recalled. Morgan pushed to keep two — and Chapman made the cut.
He appeared in 80 episodes over all seven seasons alongside Kevin Brown, who played fellow bodyguard Dot Com. The series ran from 2006 to 2013.
Typecast but Undeterred
Chapman discovered after “30 Rock” wrapped that his physical presence — all 7 feet of him — was both his calling card and his cage. He found steady work in “Blue Bloods,” “The Blacklist,” “Common Sense Police” and “The Good Fight,” along with the films “The Cobbler” and “Money Monster.” But the roles tended to look the same.
In a 2013 interview, he wondered aloud why a 7-foot actor couldn’t play a doctor, a teacher, a football coach or a cab driver — anything beyond the heavy or bodyguard he was always asked to portray. He insisted he could cry and do the emotional work casting directors assumed big guys couldn’t handle, if only they’d give him a chance.
His last on-screen credit was a 2021 short, “Diving in Stilettos First.” At the time of his death, he was in post-production on a film titled “Use Me: The Life of Guy Whitcam.”
Tributes From Old Castmates
Brown, his on-screen partner in chaos, broke the news on Facebook with a wrenching simplicity. “I regret to inform you that Mack Chapman aka Grizz Chapman passed today,” he wrote, alongside stills of the two of them acting opposite Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin. “May he RIP.”
Other “30 Rock” alumni followed. Judah Friedlander remembered Chapman as someone who was always “getting big laughs at the table reads and on camera.” Maulik Pancholy called him “so kind, so sweet, and his huge heart brought laughter to so many,” adding, “I’m grateful we became family over a seven-year run.”
Fans gathered in the comment section of Chapman’s final Instagram post to leave their own farewells. It was the last public glimpse of an actor who, even in his final days, was still moving, still making people smile.
He is survived by Diana and their two children.
