Actor Keith Jefferson of Django Unchained Passes

Keith Jefferson, the actor who worked for Quentin Tarantino on Django Unchained, The Hateful Eight and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, has died. He was 53.

Jefferson died Thursday, his rep Nicole St. John told The Hollywood Reporter. He announced in August that he had been diagnosed with cancer.

He portrayed Pudgy Ralph alongside Jamie Foxx, Leonardo DiCaprio and Samuel L. Jackson in Django Unchained (2012), then appeared as Charly in The Hateful Eight (2015) and as Land Pirate Keith in Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (2019).

Foxx took to social media Thursday to pay tribute to the actor, writing, “This one hurts. Keith, you’ve been nothing but absolute grace, your whole life your heart is pure your love is immeasurable you were an amazing soul. We will all miss you dearly. It’s gonna take a long time for this to heal. Goodbye, my friend. I love you.”

Foxx and Jefferson, who met each other in college in San Diego, started working together in the ’90s when Jefferson made an appearance on two episodes of The Jamie Foxx Show. They most recently worked on the Prime Video drama The Burial.