Malcolm-Jamal Warner remembered for a run of sold-out shows at Charlotte theater

Millions of Americans who enjoyed the sitcom’s heyday in the ’80s and ’90s remember Malcolm-Jamal Warner as the sweet, hapless teenager Theo Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.”

But this week, Charlotte’s Neighborhood Theatre and many of its loyalists are remembering Warner — who died on Sunday in a drowning accident while on a family vacation in Costa Rica at age 54 — as a musician who co-headlined a string of iconic jazz/hip-hop shows here in 2022.

“We’re saddened to learn of the tragic passing of the great Malcolm-Jamal Warner,” the NoDa venue posted on its Instagram page Monday. “Hosting him here on our stage for We Got The Jazz: A Tribute to the Jazz of A Tribe Called Quest was nothing short of magical every single time. Our hearts go out to his family, friends & all who adored him.”

Warner sold out five performances of “We Got Jazz” in March 2022 while playing stand-up bass alongside multi-instrumentalist Dashill Smith and a full band at Neighborhood. (Later that year the artists booked an encore that was reportedly canceled at the last minute.)

In a social-media post after the first three shows in March, Warner wrote: “We all experienced something beautifully special.”

But the actor and musician’s most deeply rooted ties to North Carolina were bound in Winston-Salem.

Warner was a regular at the city’s biennial National Black Theatre Festival in the 2000s, when he served as co-chair, performed a one-man show featuring his own spoken-word poetry, and hosted several late-night slams.

In an interview with The Charlotte Observer in 2005, Warner said he’d had a “performer” inside of him for as long as he could remember.

“I always had to have someone’s undivided attention. I was doing it not so much to become an actor, but to keep my mom’s foot out of my ass,” Warner recalled with a laugh. “It was all about, as she would put it, keeping that youthful energy channeled.”

Warner earned an Emmy Award nomination for his turn as the only son of Heathcliff and Clair Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.”

In 2015, he won a Grammy for Best Traditional R&B Performance — for the song “Jesus Children,” with Robert Glasper Experiment and Lalah Hathaway.

According to the Associated Press, Warner drowned after being pulled into a current on the Playa Cocles beach in Limón province.

This story was originally published July 22, 2025 at 9:57 AM.