Malcolm-Jamal Warner, The Cosby Show actor, dies at 54 | US television

The Cosby Present actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died, in line with a number of sources. He was 54.Warner by chance drowned off the coast of Cocles seaside close to Limon, Costa Rica, on Saturday afternoon, native police confirmed to ABC Information. The alert said that two males had been swept out to sea by excessive currents; one man was rescued and delivered to a hospital in essential situation; Warner was recovered on Sunday, in line with Costa Rican outlet La Teja, citing Costa Rican Pink Cross officers.The actor performed Theo Huxtable, the one son of Invoice Cosby’s patriarch Cliff Huxtable, on the seminal NBC sitcom from 1984 till 1992, incomes one Emmy nomination. Warner went on to star alongside Eddie Griffin within the sitcom Malcom & Eddie from 1996 till 2000, and have become an government producer and voice actor on the beloved academic kids’s sequence the Magic Faculty Bus.He additionally starred as Alex Reed reverse Tracee-Ellis Ross on the BET present Reed Between the Traces, from 2011 till 2015. He usually guest-starred on tv, with credit on reveals similar to Main Crimes, Fits, The Resident, 9-1-1, and Alert: Lacking Individuals Unit.Born and raised in Jersey Metropolis, New Jersey, Warner attended performing arts highschool in New York Metropolis earlier than his large break on the Cosby Present. He auditioned for the position of Theo on the ultimate day of a nationwide search. Throughout his tenure on the favored sitcom, Warner skilled as a director, and went on to direct quite a few music movies for the likes of New Version and others, in addition to episodes of sitcoms such because the Cosby Present, Kenan & Kel and Malcolm & Eddie.Warner continued to defend the Cosby Present’s legacy as a groundbreaking portrayal of a Black American household on tv, although he acknowledged the present’s popularity had modified after Invoice Cosby was convicted of sexual assault in 2018 (the conviction was later overturned on a technicality in 2021). Greater than 60 ladies have accused Cosby of violations from sexual harassment to rape, usually involving a sample of drugging to incapacitation.“I do know I can communicate for all the solid after I say the Cosby Present is one thing that we’re nonetheless very pleased with,” he advised Individuals in 2023. “No matter how some folks might really feel in regards to the present now, I’m nonetheless pleased with the legacy and having been part of such an iconic present that had such a profound impression on – at the start, Black tradition – but additionally American tradition,” Warner mentioned.Most lately, he began internet hosting his personal podcast, Not All Hood, whose newest episode dropped simply three days in the past. The present was the place the place he could possibly be “essentially the most susceptible”, he advised Individuals.“After we discuss in regards to the Black neighborhood, we have a tendency to talk of it as a monolith when the truth is there are such a lot of totally different aspects of the Black neighborhood, and we wished to have an area the place we are able to actually discover, focus on, and acknowledge all of these totally different facets,” he added.Warner is survived by a spouse and daughter, whose identities he by no means revealed publicly.Tributes had been paid on social media from throughout the trade, together with from former colleague Tracee Ellis Ross. “What an actor and buddy you had been: heat, mild, current, type, considerate, deep, humorous, elegant,” she wrote on Instagram. “You made the world a brighter place. Sending a lot like to your loved ones. I’m so sorry for this unimaginable loss.”The Guardian has reached out to his representatives for remark.