Eddie Rouse, a character actor with strong ties to Winston-Salem, has died.

Rouse, who was 60, died Sunday of liver failure at UCLA Medical Center in Santa Monica, Calif.

"I believe a person should follow their talents to the fullest," Rouse said in a 2007 interview with the Winston-Salem Journal. "You only have one shot at this life."

Rouse was born and raised in Philadelphia. He came to Winston-Salem in the early 1990s after having been through what he called “a very turbulent time in my life when I was on drugs and living in the streets homeless.”

Playwright Nathan Ross Freeman, who had worked with Rouse on stage in Philadelphia in the 1970s, was instrumental in bringing him to Winston-Salem and helping him turn his life around.

“He was my first protégé,” Freeman said Tuesday. “I would give Eddie the credit as the individual in my life who turned me into a teacher. He was voracious, insatiable for knowledge; he would challenge you as a teacher. … He was the type of actor that you would write for, that would embellish your work.

“He would not only do the role, he would transform in the role.”