Only after authorities confirmed it did the world learn who had been taken by this tragedy. The 60-year-old actress Wenne Alton Davis, known by her real name Wendy Davis — star of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel — died later that night from a severe head injury.
According to police, the Cadillac that struck her was driven by a 61-year-old man who remained at the scene. He has not been charged, though investigators are reviewing why he failed to yield to the pedestrian, who clearly had the right of way.
Her friend Edward Reynoso told reporters he had seen her just hours before the accident. She was leaving her Queens apartment, where she had lived for five years with her beloved cat. “She always texted me when she got home,” he recalled. “And that night — nothing. I kept messaging her. I couldn’t believe what had happened.”
He described her as someone who easily made connections — warm, bright, with a smile that could soften even the hardest day. They often ran into each other in the hallway, went out for dinner together — “Just two single people in a big city,” he said. Her laughter, kindness, and joie de vivre became something like a beacon in his everyday life.
In 2023, she appeared in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as a police officer alongside Rachel Brosnahan. She had also played roles in NBC shows Blindspot and New Amsterdam. Born in Durham, North Carolina, she long considered herself a true New Yorker — and it was this city where her bright path tragically ended.
Her stage name, Wenne Alton Davis, was a tribute to her father, Dewey Alton Davis. And her life — a tribute to art, to people, and to the city she loved so dearly.