{"id":81405,"date":"2025-07-21T19:36:12","date_gmt":"2025-07-21T19:36:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/81405\/"},"modified":"2025-07-21T19:36:12","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T19:36:12","slug":"the-cosby-show-actor-malcolm-jamal-warner-dead-at-54-authorities-confirm","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/81405\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The Cosby Show\u2019 actor Malcolm-Jamal Warner dead at 54, authorities confirm"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) \u2014 Malcolm-Jamal Warner the actor who played teenage son Theo Huxtable\u00a0on \u201cThe Cosby Show,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0has died at age 54 in an accidental drowning in Costa Rica, authorities there said.<\/p>\n

Costa Rica\u2019s Judicial Investigation Department said Monday that Warner drowned Sunday afternoon on a beach on Costa Rica\u2019s Caribbean coast. He was swimming at Playa Cocles in Limon province when a current pulled him deeper into the ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was rescued by people on the beach,\u201d the department\u2019s initial report said, but first responders from Costa Rica\u2019s Red Cross found him without vital signs and he was taken to the morgue.<\/p>\n

\"ActorActor Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died after drowning at age 54, according to reports.(AP)<\/p>\n

Warner created many TV moments etched in the memories of Generation X children and their parents, including a pilot-episode argument with Bill Cosby\u2019s Cliff Huxtable about money and an ear piercing he tries to hide from his dad. His Theo was the only son among four daughters in the household of Cliff Huxtable and Phylicia Rashad\u2019s Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom, and he would be one of the prime representations of American teenage boyhood on a show that was the most popular in America for much of its run from 1984 to 1992.<\/p>\n

He played the role for eight seasons in all 197 episodes, winning an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986. For many the lasting image of the character, and of Warner, is of him wearing a badly botched mock designer shirt sewed by his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet. The \u201cGordon Gartrell\u201d shirt later became a memeable image. Anthony Mackie wore one on \u201cThe Tonight Show\u201d with Jimmy Fallon and the profile picture on Warner\u2019s Instagram shows a toddler sporting one.<\/p>\n

Like the rest of the show\u2019s cast, Warner had to contend with the\u00a0sexual assault allegations<\/a>\u00a0against its titular star, whose conviction in a Pennsylvania court\u00a0was later overturned.<\/a><\/p>\n

Warner told The Associated Press in 2015 that the show\u2019s legacy was \u201ctarnished.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMy biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of color on television and film,\u201d Warner said. \u201cWe\u2019ve always had \u2018The Cosby Show\u2019 to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that\u2019s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Representatives for Cosby declined immediate comment.<\/p>\n

Warner later appeared on the sitcom \u201cMalcolm & Eddie,\u201d co-starring with comedian Eddie Griffin in the series on the defunct UPN network from 1996 to 2000. And in the 2010s he starred opposite Tracee Ellis Ross as a family-blending couple for two seasons on the BET sitcom \u201cRead Between The Lines.\u201d He also had a role as O.J. Simpson\u2019s friend Al Cowlings on \u201cAmerican Crime Story\u201d and was a series regular on Fox\u2019s \u201cThe Resident.\u201d<\/p>\n

His film roles include the 2008 rom-com \u201cFool\u2019s Gold\u201d with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. A poet and a musician,\u00a0Warner was a Grammy winner,<\/a>\u00a0for best traditional R&B performance, and was nominated for best spoken word poetry album for \u201cHiding in Plain View.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warner was married with a daughter, but chose to not publicly disclose their names. Warner\u2019s representatives declined immediate comment.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Entertainment Writer Andrew Dalton reported from Los Angeles. AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed reporting from New York.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN JOSE, Costa Rica (AP) \u2014 Malcolm-Jamal Warner the actor who played teenage son Theo Huxtable\u00a0on \u201cThe Cosby…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":81406,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[18046,185,55745,42127,4446,11846,55747,171,55707,55746,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-81405","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-actor","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-cosby-show","11":"tag-dead","12":"tag-death","13":"tag-died","14":"tag-drowned","15":"tag-entertainment","16":"tag-malcolm-jamal-warner","17":"tag-the-cosby-show","18":"tag-united-states","19":"tag-unitedstates","20":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114892910489379037","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81405","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81405"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81405\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81405"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81405"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81405"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}