O.J. Simpson – athlete, actor, and accused murderer – has died. Simpson died of cancer yesterday at age 76. According to a statement released by his family to Deadline, Simpson “was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.”

Orenthal James Simpson was born in 1947 in San Francisco, California. After a troubled youth, he became a star running back for the USC Trojans, winning the Heisman Trophy in 1968. After college, he was drafted by the Buffalo Bills, and led the league in rushing for four seasons. Nicknamed “Juice”, he was a fan favorite and one of the league’s biggest stars, but was beset by injury and discipline issues, and was traded to the San Francisco 49ers, where he played his final two seasons before retiring. With his football career over, he turned to the screen. He’d begun his acting career while still at USC, appearing in an episode of Dragnet, and starred in films and TV shows including Roots, The Towering Inferno, and Capricorn One during his NFL career. His most memorable role, however, came in the Naked Gun comedies, where he played the luckless Detective Nordberg.

What Was the O.J. Simpson Trial?

Although well-known for his football and acting career, Simpson became the most notorious man in America in the summer of 1994, when his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were brutally murdered outside her Brentwood home. Simpson, who has a history of domestic violence against Brown, was arrested (although not before briefly leading the police on a televised chase in his Ford Bronco) and charged with both murders. The trial that ensued in 1995 was front-page news for months on end, and dominated the airwaves. Although the evidence against Simpson looked solid, Simpson‘s “Dream Team” of defense lawyers (which included longtime friend Robert Kardashian, the patriarch of the now-famous family) ultimately made the case that the prosecution of Simpson was motivated by racism. He was controversially acquitted, although he was later found liable for Brown and Goldman‘s deaths in a civil trial, stripping him of much of his wealth. Simpson spent the rest of his life periodically attempting to capitalize on his newfound notoriety, and spent several years in a Nevada jail after participating in a failed heist of his sports memorabilia.

As a subject of enormous public interest following his trial, Simpson‘s life was fodder for a number of true-crime documentaries and TV movies, and in innumerable contemporary parodies and late-night comedy bits. The case was fully chronicled in the acclaimed first season of FX‘s American Crime Story, in which Simpson was portrayed by Cuba Gooding, Jr. He was also the subject of the searing ESPN documentary O.J.: Made in America.

Simpson is survived by four children, two from his marriage with Brown and two from an earlier marriage to Marguerite Whitley; Arnelle, Jason, Sydney, and Justin. A third child from his first marriage, Aaren, drowned as a toddler.

via Collider