Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who rose to fame as the son on 1980s megahit The Cosby Show and had a prolific acting career that include series-regular slots on The Resident and Malcom & Eddie, has died in a drowning accident, sources close to the actor told Deadline. He was 54.
Warner had done a few guest shots on TV series including Matt Houston and Fame when he was cast on NBC’s The Cosby Show as Theo, son of Cliff and Clair Huxtable (Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad). The sitcom debuted in 1984 and was an out-of-the-box smash, finishing the 1984-85 season as the No. 3 show in primetime behind soaps Dynasty and Dallas. By the following TV year, it was No. 1 — where it remained for five consecutive seasons.
The Cosby Show help reinvigorate the sitcom genre and helped launch NBC to the top of the ratings heap, leading to its “Must See TV” era. Warner earned a 1986 Emmy nom for his role and would remain on the show for its full nearly 200-episode run from 1984-92.
“The Cosby Show was the first time on television you saw a Black family where the humor was not predicated upon how hard it is to be Black in America, or Black affectations and Black slang,” Warner said in a 2013 interview for the TV Academy Foundation. “Bill Cosby said the humor is in the truth. When you play the truth of the moment you’ll find the humor. That way you can make anything funny.”
He appeared in a couple of episodes of spinoff series A Different World, which starred Lisa Bonet — who played Denise Huxtable on Cosby Show — and aired for six seasons on NBC from 1987-93. Warner guested on Tour of Duty and The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air during his Cosby run and afterward toplined NBC’s short-lived Here and Now, exec produced by Cosby, which aired one season in 1992-93.
From there, Warner did guest roles on TV shows including Moloney, Touched by an Angel, Sliders and others before scoring his next starring gig. He and Eddie Griffin toplined Malcolm & Eddie, a UPN sitcom about two guys in Kansas City whose moms are best pals but have nothing else in common and become roommates. Early on, Malcolm often got sucked into Eddie’s get-rich-quick ploys. Then they won the lottery and bought their shabby apartment building. The show aired 89 episodes over four seasons, skipping around the UPN schedule.
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