By Joe Walker
The Citizen Press
The game of life has many contestants. Some win and some lose. I’d like to think of those who grew up watching actor/director Malcolm-Jamal Warner as winners. He made millions of television viewers laugh with his portrayal of Theo Huxtable, the son of star Bill Cosby’s character on NBC’s hit sitcom “The Cosby Show” (1984 – 1992). Away from the camera Malcolm-Jamal enjoys a good chuckle himself. Born in New Jersey, talk of his home state NBA team tickles his funny bone.
“I don’t follow sports the way I used to, so I’m not real hip on what’s happening in basketball right now,” Warner says, laughing a bit as he speaks. “But I take it the Nets aren’t doing too well.”
Malcolm-Jamal is more adept to reading scripts than pending double teams, but he, like the professional ball players, fully understands the importance of strengthening yourself in the off-season. When he was a child out of school for summer vacations – long before acting and Bill Cosby became parts of his life, Malcolm-Jamal’s real-life father would make him read books on key historical figures and social leaders, then write essays on what he’d learned. “My father named me after Malcolm X and Ahmad Jamal; as a young kid I had to do book reports on these people during the summers,” he says. Malcolm-Jamal’s father coached him on being a person of admiration. “He gave me a great foundation and certain perspective, that I realized early on, that my young peers didn’t have. He gave me a voice.”
Later on in his young life, Malcolm-Jamal’s on-screen father gave him a platform for his voice. “Everything ‘The Cosby Show’ was about,” begins Warner, “allowed me to operate in a different kind of light. Unfortunately a lot of people in this business don’t necessarily take as much care, or have as much concern, of how people of color are portrayed in the media.”
Television has always been about entertainment, and Malcolm-Jamal says the entertainment values of today’s television market has been lowered. After “The Cosby Show” he co-starred on UPN’s “Malcolm & Eddie” (1996 – 2000), a role he wasn’t happy with. “Because of the standard of quality ‘The Cosby Show” set, I can’t just go out and do ‘anything’. One of the most stressful points of my career was doing ‘Malcolm & Eddie’,” Warner says. “I came from eight years on NBC, under Mr. Cosby’s wing in an environment where care was taken into how we were portrayed. A couple years later I get stuck on UPN, and it was very clear what their whole marketing strategy was. I came from a show that shows that Black people can be funny without being stereotypical.”
Malcolm-Jamal says he found himself in constant conflict with writers, producers, the studio and the network, and even the viewing public. He chose to step back. “There is a certain level of accountability I take,” he says. “I don’t act as much as I’d like, but I’m selective. And I’ve been blessed to have the financial means to be meticulous about the products that I do. At some point we get so starved to see ourselves on television and film, we’ll go support anything just because there are Blacks [in it]. Just because they’re Black doesn’t mean it’s not harmful.”
From an early age Malcolm-Jamal Warner was in a position to combat negative stereotypes, those harmful to him personally and his career image. On television spoke, dressed and responded with tact those unfamiliar found uncommon. Though in character, Theo was an extension of who he really was. “I was not what people thought of when they thought of a young Black male,” he says. “I’m 37 now.”
Malcolm-Jamal Warner has continued this combat throughout his post “Cosby” career. Teaching literacy and self-respect have become contents in his public speaking messages, as well as getting audiences to challenge the youth of today. “One of the issues with young people now is there’s a certain disconnect,” Warner says. “Like Mr. Cosby’s whole controversial speech in front of the NAACP; what got missed in all that controversy, and all the things taken out of context, the point of his speech was who is parenting these children? It’s our time to teach these younger kids the facts, the facts that they can be more than thugs, hustlers, drug dealers and strippers.”
Since Theo Huxtable, Malcolm-Jamal Warner has played several different roles, some fictional and true-to-life. His favorite being Leroy Cappy in film “The Tuskegee Airmen”. He also enjoyed voicing Lester Biggs, a character who appears in a pivotal episode of cartoon “Static Shock” (Kids’ WB/Cartoon Network 2000 – 2004) – a Black teen superhero from DC Comics, animated and written by the Emmy-winning team of “Batman: The Animated Series” and “Justice League Unlimited”.
“I thought it was dope. I was actually surprised it was doing as well as it was doing; not so much surprised that young people were receptive to it, but more surprised it was allowed to be aired,” Warner says, laughing afterward. “I was glad to be a part of it. It was another example of being more than something stereotypical.”
Malcolm-Jamal Warner will be speaking along with actress/author Bern Nadette Stanis – who played Thelma Evans on CBS sitcom “Good Times”- at the Lansing Center Feb. 23.
“Good Times is a part of our television history; so this kind of panel is going to be dope because you have two people from two very different shows, two very different spectrums of Black life from two very different time periods” Warner says. “There is no one television show that can represent all of one culture of America.”
Contestants in the game of life lucky enough to see Malcolm-Jamal Warner when he visits Lansing can’t lose, because Malcolm-Jamal is, simply, a winner.
