Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who as teenage son Theo Huxtable on The Cosby Show was central to a cultural phenomenon that helped define the 1980s, died at 54 in an accidental drowning in Costa Rica, authorities there said Monday, July 21.
Costa Rica’s Judicial Investigation Department said Warner drowned Sunday afternoon on a beach on Costa Rica’s Caribbean coast. He was swimming at Playa 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.
TV memories that shaped Gen X childhoods
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 another episode where Theo tries to hide his ear piercing from his dad. His Theo was the only son among four daughters in the household of Cliff Huxtable and Phylicia Rashad’s 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.
He played the role for eight seasons, appearing in each of the show’s 197 episodes and earning 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 “Gordon Gartrell” shirt later became a memeable image: Anthony Mackie wore one on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon and the profile picture on Warner’s Instagram shows a toddler sporting one.
NBA Hall of Famer Magic Johnson was among those giving 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 Cosby Show cast, 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.
