‘The Wire’ star Robert Chew known as Prop Joe has died

Baltimore actor and teacher Robert Chew who played the manipulative, portly drug kingpin Joseph “Prop Joe” Stewart on the HBO series The Wire, has passed away.

Chew died of an apparent heart failure in his sleep at his home in Northeast Baltimore, according to Clarice Chew, his sister.

Chew’s Prop Joe character on The Wire was based in part on a real-life Baltimore resident, a drug kingpin who earned his nickname from his trademark phrase “I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“The Wire cast was an embarrassment of riches, and it was easy, I think, for outsiders to overlook some of those who were so essential as supporting players,” Simon told the Baltimore Sunin an email. “Robert’s depiction of Proposition Joe was so fixed and complete — from the very earliest scenes — that the writers took for granted that anything we sent him would be finely executed.”

Chew, who also appeared in Homicide: Life on the Street and The Corner, also taught and mentored child and young adult actors at Baltimore’s Arena Players, a troupe he stayed with as his television career blossomed.

Robert Chew was 52.