Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor who played teenage son Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show, has died at age 54 in an accidental drowning in Costa Rica, authorities there said.
Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Department said Monday that Warner drowned Sunday afternoon on a beach on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. He was swimming at Playa Grande de Cocles in Limon province when a current pulled him deeper into the ocean.
“He was rescued by people on the beach,” the department’s initial report said, but first responders from Costa Rica’s Red Cross found him without vital signs and he was taken to the morgue.
On The Cosby Show, Warner created many TV moments etched in the memories of Generation X children and their parents, including a pilot-episode argument with Bill Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable about money and an ear piercing he tries to hide from his dad. Theo was the only son among four daughters in the household of Cliff and Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad) 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.
Warner 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 sewn by his sister Denise, played by Lisa Bonet.
NBA hall-of-famer Magic Johnson was among those paying him tribute Monday. Johnson said on X that he and his wife are sad to hear of the death of their friend.
“We were both super fans of the hit Cosby Show and continued to follow his career on shows like Malcolm and Eddie and The Resident,” Johnson said. “Every time I ran into Malcolm, we would have deep and fun conversations about basketball, life, and business. He will truly be missed.”
Like the rest of the cast of The Cosby Show, Warner had to contend with the sexual assault allegations against its titular star, whose conviction in a Pennsylvania court was later overturned.
Warner told The Associated Press in 2015 that the show’s legacy was “tarnished.”
“My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of color on television and film,” Warner said. “We’ve always had The Cosby Show to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.”
Representatives for Cosby declined immediate comment.
Warner later appeared on the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie, co-starring with comedian Eddie Griffin ion 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 Read Between The Lines.
“First I met you as Theo with the rest of the world then you were my first TV husband,” Ross posted on Instagram. “My heart is so so sad. What an actor and friend you were: warm, gentle, present, kind, thoughtful, deep, funny, elegant.”
He also had a role as O.J. Simpson’s friend Al Cowlings on American Crime Story and was a series regular on Fox’s The Resident.
His film roles include the 2008 rom-com Fool’s Gold with Matthew McConaughey and Kate Hudson. A poet and a musician, Warner was a Grammy winner, for best traditional R&B performance, and was nominated for best spoken word poetry album for Hiding in Plain View.
Warner was born on Aug. 18, 1970, in Jersey City, New Jersey. His mother, Pamela, served as his manager early in his career. He studied acting at the Professional Children’s School in Manhattan.
Warner was married with a daughter, but chose not to publicly disclose their names. Warner’s representatives declined immediate comment.
Warner told The Associated Press in 2015 that the show’s legacy was “tarnished.”
“My biggest concern is when it comes to images of people of color on television and film,” Warner said. “We’ve always had The Cosby Show to hold up against that. And the fact that we no longer have that, that’s the thing that saddens me the most because in a few generations the Huxtables will have been just a fairy tale.”
