Fans are mourning Sunday’s drowning death of a versatile talent, Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who played Theodore “Theo” Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.” Warner’s breakout role leaves a legacy as the last of its kind: The smart, dutiful son seeking to live up to great expectations.
“Cosby” spent five consecutive seasons at no. 1. After its curtain call, Warner avoided pitfalls that plague many child actors. He acted on shows from “Dexter” to “Suits” and became a director.
During the “Cosby” run between 1984 and 1992, the show explored the Black experience beyond the “Good Times” and “Sanford & Son” ghetto sets. “The relationship between Dr. Huxtable and Theo,” a cultural critic and author of “Martha’s Vineyard Basketball,” Bijan Bayne, tells the Sun, “reflected” a “universal” narrative “highly familiar to Black U.S. families.”
The “paternal consequential lectures” and “fatherly sit-downs,” Mr. Bayne said, “expanded on the Ward Cleaver archetype … with snark and soul.” Theo was “an All-American kid whose best friend was named ‘Cockroach,’ emblematic of the series’ difficult balance” that defied “Black paternity … stereotypes.”
The Huxtables hadn’t gone “movin’ on up” like “The Jeffersons.” Bill Cosby’s Cliff was a physician and his wife, Phylicia Rashad’s Clair, a lawyer. The “Clair Huxtable Effect” caused a boom in portrayals of working mothers.
Warner’s character, though, was the last of the “Leave it to Beaver” and “My Three Sons” variety. After “The Simpsons” replaced “Cosby” atop the ratings, a new paradigm emerged. Tales of budding manhood were replaced by those of the eternal man-child.
In 1992, President George H. W. Bush criticized Bart Simpson, who boasted of being “an underachiever and proud of it.” Bart’s father, Homer, started in the mold of Cliff but devolved. The laughs started coming not from real boyhood struggles like Theo’s, but from male buffoons.
There has been a Simpsonification of TV in the three decades since “Cosby” ended. Brilliant and earnest Lisa Simpsons hoard all the virtuous character traits, leaving sons like Bart only vices like lust, sloth, and greed.
Mr. Cosby based Theo on his only son, Ennis, which helped the character ring true. In 2014, TV Guide named Cliff the “Greatest Television Dad.” After Mr. Cosby’s sexual assault conviction in 2018, the show was yanked from syndication, denying audiences the chance to experience Warner’s coming of age.
In May on a wellness podcast, “Hot & Bothered With Melyssa Ford,” Warner reflected on viewing life as a “gift” after Ennis was murdered at 27 in 2014. Opining on the “fragility of life,” Warner recalled witnessing his grandfather’s “final breath,” moved by the “peace that … just washes over” him.
“When we grieve for people who have passed on,” Warner said, “we’re grieving for ourselves.” He took comfort in his mother saying, “Mr. Cosby gave you immortality.” The titular star may have done the casting, but an actor has to seize the opportunity or be cut loose.
Chuck Cunningham, the eldest son on “Happy Days,” disappeared in 1975; Lisa Bonet — one of Theo’s four sisters, Denise — was fired from “Cosby.” Warner earned a permanent spot. In one clip resurfacing after his death, Cliff makes Theo return a designer shirt and Denise attempts to sew a knock-off. Hilarity ensues.
What’s special about Warner’s performances is his restraint. There’s “The Brady Bunch” sibling rivalry and battle of the sexes, sure. Love tempers Theo’s passions, though. In a house full of women, he’s never a bully, fool, or misogynist. Few shows have explored a character like that since, reducing boyhood to a punchline.
In 2018, Warner demonstrated the man he had become when another “Cosby” alum, Geoffrey Owens, was mocked for working at Trader Joe’s. Warner offered what the Atlanta Journal-Constitution described as a “full-throated defense” on the set of “The Resident.” He said “all actors” have “dry spells” and dismissed the “horrible people … on social media” while calling it “heartwarming” that so many there had “rallied around Geoffrey.”
Warner’s warm smile and portrayal of Theo gave a generation of young men an aspirational figure, one they’d be glad to call a friend and parents would be proud to call a son. Warner was a success as an actor, director, and father. As admirers grieve, they can take comfort from his having lived — and in the fact that his talent did indeed make him immortal.
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Correction: In 2014, Cliff Huxtable was named “Greatest Television Dad.” An earlier version misstated the year.
