Invoice Cosby has paid tribute to his Cosby Present on-screen son Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who drowned whereas on a household journey in Costa Rica on Sunday.
Cosby’s spokesperson, Andrew Wyatt, instructed Folks that Warner’s tragic loss of life “reminded him of the identical name he acquired when his son died.” (Cosby’s son, Ennis Cosby, was murdered in 1997 throughout an tried theft on a Los Angeles freeway ramp as he tried to alter a flat tire. He was 27.)
Authorities mentioned Warner’s official reason behind loss of life was asphyxia, brought about when the physique is disadvantaged of oxygen. He died close to Playa Cocles, a seashore in Limon, Costa Rica, in accordance with police, including that the actor was caught by a powerful present within the water and his physique was discovered Sunday afternoon.
Wyatt mentioned Cosby’s son “performed with Malcolm” and known as the 54-year-old actor’s loss of life “devastating.”
“He discovered a strategy to discuss Malcolm although he was unhappy,” Wyatt mentioned of Cosby.
Cosby, 88, mentioned that “Malcolm was doing what he liked when he died — he was together with his household.”
“He had simply performed a live performance in Minnesota and known as Mr. Cosby and talked about it. They spoke on a regular basis. He mentioned ‘Malcolm was altering humanity,’” Wyatt mentioned.
Cosby’s spokesperson added that the actor was talking together with his Cosby Present co-stars following Warner’s loss of life. He mentioned Cosby was “on the telephone with Phylicia Rashad reminiscing about Malcolm.”
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In one other assertion to CBS Information, Cosby mentioned that in his dialog with Rashad, who performed his on-screen spouse Claire Huxtable, the 2 have been “embracing one another over the telephone a few dearly beloved pal.”
“He was by no means afraid to go to his room and examine. He knew his traces and that he was fairly snug even with the rising pains of a being a teen,” Cosby mentioned, including that he spoke to Warner “three months in the past.”
Cosby’s spokesperson additionally instructed the New York Put up that the actor mentioned of his on-screen youngsters, “Whereas I used to be their TV dad, I by no means stopped being a father to them.”
Invoice Cosby acts with Malcolm-Jamal Warner in a scene from the ‘Cosby Present.’.
Jacques M. Chenet/CORBIS/Corbis by way of Getty Pictures
In one other assertion to Us Weekly, Wyatt mentioned Cosby praised Warner for his capability to be a task mannequin for different youngsters, including, “You by no means heard something unfavourable concerning the baby actors from The Cosby Present. No medicine, no alcohol, none of that.”
Like the remainder of the Cosby Present solid, Warner needed to deal with the sexual assault allegations in opposition to Cosby, whose conviction in a Pennsylvania court docket was later overturned.
Warner instructed The Related Press in 2015 that the present’s legacy was “tarnished.”
“My greatest concern is in the case of photographs of individuals of shade on tv and movie,” Warner mentioned. “We’ve all the time had The Cosby Present to carry up in opposition to that. And the truth that we not have that, that’s the factor that saddens me probably the most as a result of in just a few generations the Huxtables could have been only a fairy story.”
In one other interview, Warner referred to Cosby as his mentor and spoke concerning the optimistic interactions he’s had with the comic all through his life.
“The Invoice Cosby I do know has been nice to me and nice for lots of people,” Warner mentioned in an interview with Billboard in January 2015. “What he’s performed for comedy and tv has been legendary and history-making. What he’s performed for the Black group and schooling has been invaluable. That’s the Invoice Cosby I do know. I can’t communicate on the opposite stuff.”
“He’s one in every of my mentors, and he’s been very influential and performed a giant position in my life as a pal and mentor,” Warner continued. “Simply because it’s painful to listen to any girl discuss sexual assault, whether or not true or not, it’s simply as painful to look at my pal and mentor undergo this.”
He performed Theo Huxtable for eight seasons, showing in every of the 197 episodes of The Cosby Present and incomes an Emmy nomination for supporting actor in a comedy in 1986.
Warner would develop a love-hate relationship with the character.
“Theo was excellent to me. And I feel that present and that position is timeless. And I’m very happy with that position,” Warner mentioned in a current podcast interview, whereas noting that he’d tried to separate himself from the position and for years would recoil when followers addressed him as Theo.
“A part of the distancing for me isn’t desirous to see how a lot of Malcolm is in Theo. I bear in mind doing the present and I all the time thought that Theo is corny. I would like Theo to be cooler,” he instructed Melyssa Ford on her Scorching & Bothered podcast. “Someone known as me America’s favorite white Black boy. And I used to be 15…. It damage me…. That’s cultural trauma.”
Warner left behind a spouse and daughter, whose identities will not be identified.
— With information from The Related Press
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