Jeopardy! host Mayim Bialik recently shared the heartbreaking and shocking way she found out that co-star Leslie Jordan had passed away after suffering a sudden cardiac dysfunction. Mayim, who appeared alongside the late actor in the TV series Call Me Kat, recalled that other cast members and crew were expecting Leslie to show up on set when they received the sad news of his death. “It was a sudden thing,” Mayim said. “We were all at work and waiting for him to show up, so it was very, very, very complicated, you know, to have the whole crew there and the whole cast.”
The 47-year-old revealed on The Jennifer Hudson Show that every cast member had to deal with Leslie’s death because they all share a strong bond. “We were a family, and we were one of the first shows back actually after the lockdown, so we were all in our homes, and then the people we got to spend the most time with was each other. So we kind of became like this little COVID unit,” she said. “We were often the only people we were interacting with, outside of whomever was in our homes. So we were all very close.”
Mayim Bialik claims that Leslie Jordan was a lovable person
Mayim further disclosed that the late actor was well-known and loved by many people and not just fans of the sitcom series. “People knew Leslie Jordan as Leslie Jordan, not just necessarily as the character he played on our show,” she explained. “You know, he’s been in people’s lives… especially during COVID, he was in people’s Instagram feeds, and… a lot of people really formed a real connection with him, and he loved that.”
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“He loved being approachable, he loved being loved,” she concluded. “It’s rare to find a group of people so unanimous about something so quickly, and we all just said we want him to live forever.”
Mayim Bialik reveals the show plans on immortalizing Leslie Jordan
The Jeopardy! host also revealed that cast members of Call Me Kat are planning to celebrate and keep alive the legacy of Leslie Jordan, who played the role of Phil. “We all kinda felt it’s a really hard thing to do, there’s no right way to do it,” she told Hudson. “But our showrunners, Jim Patterson and Maria Ferrari, really helped usher us through it, but it was very emotional to decide, like, how do you grieve while having to act as people grieving.”
Mayim concluded by pointing out that the third season of Call Me Kat, which is currently airing, brings back the memory of working with Leslie. “I think this whole season feels like the season we lost Leslie,” she said. “It’s been hard… and we’re grateful to have gotten the opportunity to work with him the way we did, and in the time of his life that we got to work with him.”