Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who etched himself into TV history as Theo Huxtable, has died at 54. Warner drowned Saturday, July 20, swimming near Cocles Beach in Limón, Costa Rica, while on vacation with family. Lifeguards and paramedics tried to revive him on the sand, but he was pronounced dead shortly afterward.
Warner was 14 when The Cosby Show debuted in 1984; he remained with it for the entire eight-season run. He received an Emmy nomination for a 1986 episode in which Theo confronts an academic stumbling block: he realizes grades cannot be bought. The performance impressed critics and audiences alike for its honest, layered depiction of adolescent doubt. Although the show itself has become a fraught legacy, it is still cited as a watershed in American television, using humor and pointed cultural observations to present a prosperous Black family as a normalized, complex reality.
In the years after The Cosby Show finished airing, Warner kept busy, landing consistent roles in both TV and movies. He headlined Malcolm & Eddie and Reed Between the Lines, and later popped up in episodes of The Resident, Suits, 9-1-1, and even lent his voice to The Magic School Bus. In 2015, he took home a Grammy for the song “Jesus Children,” recorded with the Robert Glasper Experiment.
When he died, Warner was in the early days of a podcast called Not All Hood, which took a deep dive into Black identity and mental health. The show’s latest episode dropped just three days before the news of his passing. He leaves behind a wife and a daughter, both of whose names the family has chosen to keep private.
Since the news broke, colleagues and fans alike have flooded social media with memories and praise. By Monday afternoon, however, the family had yet to share a formal statement, and details for the funeral remain pending.
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