Actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner, best known for playing Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died at 54. Costa Rican authorities report he was on a family vacation there and drowned while swimming.
ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died at age 54. He was best known for playing Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.” He told my cohost Juana Summers in 2023 that he was raised in a family that appreciated the power of art.
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MALCOLM-JAMAL WARNER: I mean, we can start with my father named me after Malcolm X and Ahmad Jamal (laughter). He was pretty hardcore about making sure that I understood my history, and he did a lot of that through the arts.
SHAPIRO: Costa Rican authorities report that Malcolm-Jamal Warner was on a family vacation and drowned while swimming. Aisha Harris cohosts NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour podcast, and she is here to discuss Warner’s career. Hi, Aisha.
AISHA HARRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Ari.
SHAPIRO: Warner was so closely identified with his role as Theo. Viewers of “The Cosby Show” watched him grow up. What were some of his most memorable moments on that show?
HARRIS: Wow, so many – the first thing that immediately came to mind when I heard of his passing was the episode where he wants the Gordon Gartrell (ph) designer shirt. He buys the designer shirt to impress a girl, but then his father tells him, you know, you got to take it back. It’s too expensive. So he commissions his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet, to make a shirt just like it, and it does not come out the way he’d hoped (laughter).
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WARNER: (As Theo Huxtable, yelling) Is this the shirt I paid $30 for? Is this the shirt they’re supposed to think is a Gordon Gartrell?
HARRIS: And his reaction to that is just, like, exasperation. He’s very upset. He’s so worried about being embarrassed by this girl. And I think that’s part of why Warner was so great on the show, is he had a way of seeming very relatable and believable as a child actor. He seemed like your average teenage boy. He wanted to be liked. He fought with his sisters. He didn’t always do great in school. But he was also affable and sweet.
SHAPIRO: He also had other roles, and he worked as a director. Tell us about that.
HARRIS: Yeah. I mean, he starred in “Malcolm & Eddie” alongside Eddie Griffin in the late ’90s. That went on for four seasons. He also popped up in a lot of guest roles on various TV sitcoms, including “The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air.” But he also did a lot of stuff behind the camera. He directed TV sitcoms, including “Kenan & Kel.” He directed music videos for artists like New Edition.
My favorite post-Theo role of his was probably his stint on the Dan Harmon TV show “Community,” where he played Shirley’s ex-husband. He was just very fun to watch on there. But he was kind of all over the place, and that was one of the things that kept him in the business. He had a lot of hats, and he wore a lot of hats.
SHAPIRO: What did he say about the accusations against Bill Cosby, since he was so closely associated with that show?
HARRIS: Yeah, I mean, he took a sort of diplomatic approach to it. In a Jemele Hill podcast interview he did back in 2023 he said, you know, I can’t defend him or his actions at all, but I also can’t throw him under the bus completely. And so Warner – you know, he very much acknowledged that the Cosby allegations cast a cloud over the show’s legacy, and he lamented that it kind of prevented the cast from reaping some of the financial rewards that, you know, other shows of that era have – able to have through reboots. You think of, you know, “Fuller House,” “The Conners.” But I think he also knew – he seemed to know that the show was so much more than Cosby and that any sort of ill will from audiences towards that show’s creator and its star didn’t extend to the rest of the people who made the show what it was.
SHAPIRO: What kind of legacy does Malcolm-Jamal Warner leave behind?
HARRIS: I mean, besides acting and directing, he was also a musician. He was also someone who was able to make that rare transition from being a child performer to a multi-hyphenate artist in a smooth way. And this is something he attributed to his mother, who was also his manager early in his career – always being ready and set up for success for once the show is over. And I think that absolutely bore out in the rest of the – his career. He seemed very able to take things well and was just all around someone who seemed to work well with everyone.
SHAPIRO: That’s…
HARRIS: So he will be missed.
SHAPIRO: …Pop Culture Happy Hour cohost Aisha Harris, remembering Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Thank you very much.
HARRIS: Thank you.
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