Malcolm-Jamal Warner was known for playing teenage son Theo Huxtable in hit sitcom The Cosby Show in the 1980s, but did his considerable best to avoid being defined by the role. A child actor born in New Jersey, Warner played the only son among four daughters in the household of Cosby’s Cliff Huxtable and Phylicia Rashad’s Clair Huxtable on The Cosby Show, one of the prime representations of American teenage life and Black boyhood on screen from 1984 to 1992 — he appeared in every one of its 197 episodes and was Emmy-nominated. Unlike many child stars his career endured beyond his first show, Warner worked for more than 40 years as an actor and director, also starring in the sitcoms Malcolm & Eddie and Read Between the Lines, and in the medical drama The Resident. A workaholic Warner credited that to a "maniacal obsession with not wanting to be one of those ‘where are they now’ kids". Warner died on July 20 aged 54 in an accidental drowning in Costa Rica. — Allied Media
