Kamar de los Reyes, a Puerto Rican actor known for playing policeman Antonio Vega in the soap opera “One Life to Live” and for voicing the villain Raul Menendez in the video game franchise “Call of Duty, ” died Sunday in Los Angeles. He is 56.
He died of cancer, according to Lisa Goldberg, the publicist for his wife, actress Sherri Saum.
De los Reyes was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, on Nov. 8, 1967, to a Cuban father, Walfredo de los Reyes, and a Puerto Rican mother, Matilde Pages. He describes himself as “from a family of musicians”: His two brothers and father are acclaimed percussionists, and his grandfather is a famous trumpeter.
De los Reyes grew up in Las Vegas and, after high school, moved to Los Angeles to pursue acting. But his first big break was in New York, where he played the role of Pedro Quinn in the Off Broadway play “Blade to the Heat,” a performance described by The New York Times in 1994 as the show’s “most attractive.”
“More than any words he utters, the actor’s haunted eyes, sunken cheeks and shaved head convey the extent of Pedro’s suffering,” wrote David Richards, theater critic for The Times. “At rest, he is almost spectral. In the ring, he’s like a short circuit, and his silent scream of triumph is a guaranteed spine-tingler.”
In his longest-running and perhaps best-known role, he was a gangster-turned-police officer, Antonio Vega, on the soap opera “One Life to Live.” De los Reyes appeared in nearly 300 episodes from 1995 to 1998 and from 2000 to 2009. After his character was released from his prison sentence for murder charges when it was revealed that he was acting in self-defense, he became a police officer and had a series. of romantic entanglements.
Saum also played the character Keri Reynolds on the show from 2001 to 2003, before the two actors married, and their characters were romantically involved.
The show, which ran from 1968 to 2012 mostly on ABC, was groundbreaking for its diverse cast, including the first Black actor to play a lead role on daytime television.
In a 2007 interview with Urban Latino magazine, De los Reyes said of the show, “We’re one of the few soaps that has a Latino family, a Puerto Rican family, which you don’t see a lot, not only in daytime but on prime time television. in general, and it’s something that I think network television needs to work on.”
“I think ‘One Life to Live’ did a great job of that,” he added.
De los Reyes also voiced the villain Raul Menendez in the 2012 video game “Call of Duty: Black Ops II,” as well as “Call of Duty: Black Ops 4” and “Call of Duty: Vanguard.” His character is often considered one of the franchise’s best villains.
At the time of his death, he was filming the CW sports drama “All American” and had recently shot roles in the upcoming series “Daredevil: Born Again” and the miniseries “Washington Black,” according to the publicist of His wife.
De los Reyes is survived by his wife, Sherri Saum; his three sons, Caylen, Michael and John; his brothers Daniel and Walfredo Jr.; his sisters Lily and Ilde; and his mother and father.
