Essentially the most profitable rock stars and baby stars are sometimes suffering from a singular downside most of us would betray a detailed relative to expertise: How precisely does one age gracefully after reaching immortality in youth? How do you carry the burden of early success for the remainder of your life when the burden appears to get exponentially heavier with time? The record of performers crushed by this albatross are numerous. However Malcolm-Jamal Warner has by no means been anyplace close to that record.
Era X, notably Black Gen X, was uniquely touched by his tragic passing this week in Costa Rica. Warner, who died only a month shy of his fifty fifth birthday, was one among us. He was catapulted into stardom with the 1984 debut of “The Cosby Present” on NBC through which he portrayed Theo Huxtable, the lone son in a household consisting of 4 (and later, 5) youngsters and two Black skilled dad and mom. We now have not seen a household sitcom as huge as “The Cosby Present” because it ended its run in 1992 (actually the identical evening the fires of the riots in Los Angeles burned), and it’s sure we by no means will once more. We’re just too fragmented culturally for that now. Malcolm-Jamal Warner, solely 14 on the evening the pilot aired and 13 when it was taped, was an enormous a part of the present’s unparalleled success.
Anybody who was watching “The Cosby Present” on September 20, 1984 (and chances are high good in the event you have been alive then, you have been), is aware of precisely what I imply. The primary episode launched us to the Huxtable household, headed by gynecologist Cliff Huxtable (you understand who) and lawyer Claire Huxtable (performed by Phylicia Rashad). It was all a fairly commonplace affair however for the unhappy noteworthiness of a Black household being the middle of a primetime sitcom that was decidedly higher center class and never a soapbox for speeches meant to elicit earnest applause from sympathetic white viewers.
The pilot was each revolutionary and fairly standard (if higher executed than quite a lot of TV on the time). After which got here the showstopping scene that modified all the pieces. Cliff is shipped upstairs to scold his son Theo for an unsatisfactory report card. The dialog between the 2 was each a declaration of intent for the present and introduced down the home. Cliff, as many dads earlier than him and since then, basically instructed his son extra of him was anticipated due to the household he was lucky sufficient to hail from. And Theo offers an earnest speech, as some sons have earlier than him and a few since, that maybe being a member of the Proficient Tenth wasn’t within the playing cards for him, and that not like Cliff and Claire, maybe he was simply “common folks.” Theo ends the speech with the notion that Cliff ought to love him simply the identical, even when he isn’t as much as assembly his lofty requirements. And after the viewers applauds Warner’s supply of this speech, Cliff says “That’s the dumbest factor I’ve ever heard.”
He then proceeds to present Theo a lesson in grownup economics that has turn out to be a gold commonplace in scenario comedy. Warner, with solely 2 or 3 credit to his title on the time, holds his personal in a scene with one of many all-time greats. With out that scene and their work in it, I don’t suppose the present would have instantly swept the American tv viewers off its toes.
Warner was an grownup by the point the present ended, and over the run of the present he got here to really feel like a brother and a buddy, particularly to these of us in his age bracket. I keep in mind watching him host “Friday Night time Movies” and considering then how a lot of a daily teenager he was. We who have been teenagers of the Reagan period keep in mind how he was capable of take part within the youth tradition of the time. He directed music movies for Johnny Gill-era New Version (the video for “N.E. Heartbreak” is laden with cameos however has a youthful ebullience that recollects Richard Lester’s work with The Beatles) and British pop act 5 Star.
Once I discovered of his dying, I instantly considered his look within the 1986 hip hop music video for Whodini’s infectious monitor “Funky Beat,” directed by at least Melvin Van Peebles. Warner performs a nerd in a tux, awkwardly standing in entrance of a lectern as if in a highschool auditorium like a expertise present MC. Then the music begins, and after we aren’t watching the Whodini trio rap, we’re within the crowd, full of mid-80s hip hop luminaries. Malcolm-Jamal Warner dances with Donnie Simpson, eradicating his jacket and glasses to do the newest strikes unencumbered. It was form of thrilling seeing somebody on the most important TV present on the planet jubilantly take part on this new tradition. It all the time made me suppose that Malcolm-Jamal Warner was actually one among us.
Warner labored often in films after his breakthrough, however primarily stayred in tv. He lately performed (in opposition to kind since he often conveyed a simple heat and soulfulness) a gruff and boastful surgeon on “The Resident” (2018 – 2023). Earlier, he starred in an ill-fated try to have his family sitcom enjoying an English professor (“Reed Between the Traces”), and a few very humorous appearances on “Key & Peele.”
However his coronary heart appeared to lie in spoken phrase and music. He gained a Grammy in 2015 for Finest Conventional R&B Efficiency alongside Robert Glasper and Lalah Hathaway for the tune “Jesus Kids.” I’ve heard that he felt such a connection to his spoken phrase group that he was identified to quietly provide religious and monetary assist to poets who weren’t as well-known as himself.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner, Mal-Jam to his pals, lived lengthy sufficient to reply the query of how he wished to be remembered. And he merely mentioned he wished to be remembered as somebody who tried to unfold positivity and love. His closing social media submit reaffirmed that. And let’s say howdy to the elephant within the room: he owed his profession to a person broadly seen now as a monster. Warner didn’t discuss a lot about this, however he additionally refused to supply his former co-star and TV dad any ethical assist and denounced the crimes he was convicted of wholeheartedly. To any extent further, celebrities, particularly males, who’ve managed fame within the twenty first century in such a means that they by no means needed to challenge a public apology or examined their followers’ loyalty, need to be honored. Unhappy commentary, however true.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner dealt with being younger (after which, not so younger), male, Black, and well-known with an distinctive ease. For that we will credit score his mom Pamela Warner, who instructed him, whereas “The Cosby Present” was on the air, that he wanted to begin excited about the life he wished to have when the present ended. His mom did an impressive job guiding him by the minefield of superstar.
I’m positive I’m not alone in considering of Ennis Cosby, the real-life son that Theo Huxtable was not less than in broad strokes modeled after. Ennis Cosby was murdered at 27, when he was precisely half the age of Malcolm-Jamal Warner was at his passing. They have been solely a yr aside in age. I gained’t try to assign any grand which means to this unhappy coincidence. However I’m haunted by the thought of those two males denied the privilege of elderhood, whereas others spend their golden years defending their previous nefarious deeds.
In his final video on Instagram, sporting a flower over his ear positioned there by his younger daughter, he reminded us that there was all the time a cause to smile, even within the darkest of occasions. And that in the event you couldn’t smile for your self, exit and make another person smile. Trying again on his profession, Malcolm-Jamal Warner gave us causes to smile. And because the shock of his loss fades, the grins of those that considered him as a brother or a buddy, will return.