(October 27, 1965 – August 12, 2024)
Winsome Sinclair, a veteran casting professional who worked on scores of films and TV shows — many as casting director — including Malcolm D. Lee’s The Best Man, Steven Spielberg’s Amistad, the Gabrielle Union series Being Mary Jane and a dozen Spike Lee movies, died August 12 of colon cancer on Long Island. She was 58.
Sinclair served as casting director on more than a dozen films and several TV series and in the casting department for more than 50 others — ranging from an internship on Spike Lee’s 1990 Mo’ Better Blues to several current projects in various stages of production.
She also worked on Spike Lee’s films Jungle Fever, Malcolm X, Crooklyn, Clockers, Get on the Bus, He Got Game, Summer of Sam, 25th Hour, She Hate Me, Inside Man, Miracle at St. Anna and Red Hook Summer. Sinclair’s many other credits include John Singleton’s Higher Learning, 2 Fast 2 Furious and Abduction and Malcom D. Lee’s The Best Man (1999) and Barbershop: The Next Cut.
Other films on which she served in the casting department include Lee Daniels’ Precious, Forest Whitaker’s Waiting to Exhale and the Tupac Shakur biopic All Eyez on Me. Along with Being Mary Jane, Sinclair’s TV credits include Dee Rees’ biopic Bessie, starring Queen Latifah as blues legend Bessie Smith.
