STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Malcolm-Jamal Warner has died. He drowned while vacationing in Costa Rica at the age of 54. Warner first became a household name while playing a kid in a TV household. He was Theo Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" before going on to many other roles. An album of spoken-word poetry that he did was nominated for a Grammy. Shortly after that nomination, he spoke with All Things Considered about how he chose his roles.
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MALCOLM-JAMAL WARNER: My dad went to Lincoln University because Langston Hughes went to Lincoln University. So I literally - I came out the womb, and my life was about poetry. So fast-forward. I get to "Cosby" and the global impact that that show had. I find it difficult to go from a show that represented so much and did so much for the culture - it would be a slap in the face to go back and do work that perpetuated those negative stereotypes of Black people.
INSKEEP: Let's talk about his legacy with Pop Culture Happy Hour co-host Aisha Harris. Good morning.
AISHA HARRIS, BYLINE: Hi, Steve.
INSKEEP: Glad you're with us. Would you remind people, or maybe inform people who weren't alive at the time, what his role meant as Theo Huxtable on "The Cosby Show" in the 1980s and a little beyond?
HARRIS: I mean, he was one of the definitive depictions of the teenage experience in the 1980s on that show. In one episode - one of my favorite episodes - he buys a designer T-shirt to impress a girl, but his father tells him to take it back because it's too expensive. So Theo commissions his sister Denise, who's played by Lisa Bonet, to make a shirt just like it, and it doesn't quite come out the way he'd hoped.
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WARNER: (As Theo Huxtable, yelling) Is this my shirt? Is this the shirt I paid $30 for? Is this the shirt they are supposed to think is a Gordon Gartrell?
HARRIS: I mean, Warner had a way of seeming relatable and believable as a child actor, and he had a great sense of comedic timing. And I think that's really important to the - that role.
INSKEEP: Oh, absolutely. And as I hear you describe it and also listen to his own description about stereotypes of Black people, he was conveying a universal experience and something that appealed to a universal audience. How did he transition beyond that role, though?
HARRIS: He definitely sort of broke the curse of what it means to be a child star and then try to transition into being an adult artist. He starred in other sitcoms. He popped up in a lot of TV shows of the time as a guest star, including "The Fresh Prince Of Bel-Air." But he also starred in "Malcolm & Eddie" from 1996 to 2000. He directed. He produced. He was a musician. He was very much a multihyphenate performer.
INSKEEP: Wow. So he really grew as an artist, or at least showed different sides of himself over time.
HARRIS: Yeah, absolutely.
INSKEEP: And if you had to step back and sum up his career, what do you think his legacy will be?
HARRIS: You know, I think, especially for Black people, he/Theo and everything - he was so many different things. He was a son, a brother, a first crush. He was one of the all-time-great TV kids. But I think outside of that, he was also just very deeply committed to speaking out about mental health and well-being. He had a podcast called "Not All Hood." And there was just, like, this outpouring of love I noticed yesterday after the news was announced, from people he worked with and people he was close with, that I think shows that he's absolutely going to be remembered as someone who brought people immense joy in the industry - an industry that can often be so ruthless and destructive. He was beloved. I mean, I think he understood - one of the things he spoke about in interviews was just being both grateful for the opportunity to have worked on "The Cosby Show," but also to know that it would only be a small part of his legacy and that there is a lot more to being an artist than just one role or one series. He really defined that in many ways.
INSKEEP: Aisha Harris of Pop Culture Happy Hour. Thanks so much.
HARRIS: Thank you.
INSKEEP: She's remembering Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who's died at the age of 54. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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