Sherman Hemsley, who was rooted in the minds of millions of viewers as the next boom black Archie Bunker, George Jefferson in "All in the Family" and then as the star of the comedy LP "The Jefferson" has died. He was 74.
The actor, who owned a house in El Paso, was found dead Tuesday by the Sheriff's Department Pas, his agent, Frank Todd, told the Times. No cause of death was given.
Hemsley time in relative obscurity as an actor in New York for the first time celebrity in 1973 when producer Norman Lear chose to "All in the Family", the controversial comedy starring Carroll O'Connor as the patriarch fan a working class family in Queens.
Like George Jefferson, Hemsley was a burr in the side of Archie, who loved to annoy your neighbors of their prejudices. It appeared in the hit program from 1973 until 1975, when he left to star in the spin-off of The Jefferson Lear Sanford "Elizabeth, who played his wife, Louise.
"The Jefferson" ran for 11 seasons on CBS, so Hemsley one of the most viewed black actors of the environment.
"Sherman was one of the most generous co-stars I've worked," said Marla Gibbs, who played the smart-mouth cleaning Jefferson ", Florence Johnston." He made me so happy that I to win, and I did the same for him. I miss him deeply. "
In 1970, Lear was looking for talents to Broadway when he saw Hemsley, who was playing the role of Gitlow in "Purlie," a musical set in the segregated South. Hemsley audition for the producer the next day, but was not hired.
George Jefferson, quoted in "All in the Family" as Edith Bunker's husband, friend, Louise Jefferson (played by Sanford), but does not appear until 1973, when Lear finally brought the show Hemsley.
"The energy of the man believed he was totally in sync with the image we have created behind the scenes of George," said Lear Albany Times Union in 1999.
When George Jefferson returned a small dry cleaning in a string of successes, moved from Queens to the Manhattan luxury skyscraper to another. His entry into the ranks of the nouveau riche, provided the starting point for "The Jefferson".
"I loved the character, because he knew that people like," Hemsley said in an interview with George Jefferson in 2003 for the Archive of American Television.
Hemsley was born February 1, 1938, in Philadelphia and grew up along the drive south of the city. He was raised by a single mother who worked long hours in a factory.
In his teens he joined a gang and became a "High School begins." After leaving school he worked for four years, the Air Force in Japan and Korea, before returning to his hometown, where he worked as a mail sorter in a post office.
His day job has allowed him to pursue a childhood dream of acting, which was caused by her portrayal of a fire in a school of design for fire prevention week.
"I was at home on stage immediately clear that he brings up and threw water on the floor and rolled said..! Frustrated again," he told the Associated Press 1986.
In Philadelphia, he joined a theater company where he gained experience in a variety of roles, including the son of Willy Loman, Happy in "Death of a Salesman" Archibald and Jean Genet "blacks".
In 1967, he moved to a post office in New York, trying to act to work in their spare time. He joined the Advanced performance workshops Negro Ensemble Company and studied with Lloyd Richards, who directed Lorraine Hansberry "A Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway.
His career in television through four decades, with appearances on "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" and "Family Matters".
In late 1990, he began dividing his time between Los Angeles and El Paso. Information about survivors was not immediately available.
After "The Jefferson" was canceled in 1985, he played Ernest Frye, a deacon of the church Saint-that-you and a lawyer in the sitcom "Amen", which worked on NBC 1986-1991.
He expressed the character B.P. Richfield in "Dinosaurs," a comedy about a family of puppet animals domesticated by prehistoric aired on ABC from 1991 to 1994. From 1996 to 1997 he starred in the short-lived UPN series "Goode Behavior", the former fascinating game with Willie Goode.
None of these characters had the appeal of George Jefferson. Years after the program ended, fans Hemsley often asked him to rebuild the famous George amount of the opening credits of the show. Hemsley, said he was inspired Slopes Philadelphia, a dance that he learned as a child in Philadelphia.
But he insisted that in most other ways, he and his character was very different. "I do not close the doors in the faces of people, and I'm not a fanatic," he told USA Today in 1999. "I'm just an old hippie. You know, peace and love."
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