Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor most famous for playing Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died. He was 54.
Warner died by drowning on a family trip to Costa Rica, People magazine reported July 21.
Though he compiled a long and varied acting resume, Warner remained best-known for his first big role, as the only son of Bill Cosby’s character Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show. Warner was only a teenager when he was first cast in the show, and Cosby picked him personally.
“My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of color on television and film, no matter what … negative stereotypes of people of color, we’ve always had The Cosby Show to hold up against that,” Warner said in a 2015 interview, after the show’s biggest star was accused of rape and sexual assault by several women. “And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me.”
As an adult, Warner starred on Sons of Anarchy and The People v. O.J. Simpson, among several other shows and movies.
Most recently, Warner started a podcast called Not All Hood with Weusi Baraka and Candace Kelley about the various identities and perceptions of Black people throughout the US.
—Joseph Wilkinson, New York Daily News (TNS)
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