Kamar de los Reyes, a Puerto Rican actor best known for playing police officer Antonio Vega in the soap opera “One Life to Live” and the voice of villain Raul Menendez in the video game series “Call of Duty,” is on Died Sunday Los Angeles. He was 56.
According to Lisa Goldberg, his wife Sherri Saum's publicist, he died of cancer.
De los Reyes was born on November 8, 1967 in San Juan, Puerto Rico to a Cuban father, Walfredo de los Reyes, and a Puerto Rican mother, Matilde Pages. He described himself as “coming from a family of musicians”: his two brothers and his father were celebrated drummers, and his grandfather was a famous trumpeter.
De los Reyes grew up in Las Vegas and moved to Los Angeles after high school to pursue acting. One of his first major roles was as Pedro Quinn in the off-Broadway play Blade to the Heat, a performance that The New York Times in 1994 called the show's “most riveting.”
“More than any words he utters, the actor's haunted eyes, sunken cheeks and shaved head convey the extent of Pedro's torment,” wrote Times theater critic David Richards. “When it’s at rest it’s almost ghostly. In the ring he is like a short circuit, and his quiet scream of triumph is guaranteed to give you goosebumps.”
In his longest-running and perhaps best-known role, he was gangster-turned-cop 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 is released from prison for murder when it is revealed that he acted in self-defense, he becomes a police officer and has a series of romantic entanglements.
The show, which ran primarily on ABC from 1968 to 2012, was groundbreaking for its diverse cast, including the first Black actor to play a leading 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 an all-Latino family, a Puerto Rican family that you don't see much of, not only .” on daytime television, but prime time overall, and that’s something I think network television needs to work harder on.”
“I think One Life to Live has done a great job here,” 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 best villains in the series.
At the time of his death, he was filming the CW sports drama “All American” and had recently filmed roles in the upcoming series “Daredevil: Born Again” and the miniseries “Washington Black,” according to his wife's publicist.
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.