Bill Cobbs, a reliable character actor who played key roles in such films as Hudsucker Proxy, Sunshine State And night at the Museumhas passed away. He was 90 years old.
Cobbs died of natural causes Tuesday night at his home in Riverside, his publicist, Chuck I. Jones, said. The Hollywood Reporter.
Cobbs, a Cleveland native who excelled at comedy as well as drama, played Whitney Houston’s manager Bodyguard (1992), by Rob Reiner, Medgar Evers’ older brother Ghosts of Mississippi (1996), a jazz pianist in a Tom Hanks film that thing You Do! (1996) and the creator of the Tin Woodsman in Sam Raimi’s film The Master Tinker oz The Great and Powerful (2013).
He also played a wise coach who incorporated the basketball-playing dog into the Timberwolves lineup. Air Bud (1997).
On television, Cobbs emerged as the sarcastic bartender in the drama The Dutchman, starring Dabney Coleman The Story of Slap MaxwellTony the bus driver said the drew carey show, the title character’s father The Gregory Hines Show and Dr. Emory Erickson, inventor of the transporter, Star Trek: Enterprise,
the Coen brothers Hudsucker Proxy (1994), Cobbs played Moses, a mystical clock man whose ability to stop time came not a moment too soon for Tim Robbins’s Norville Barnes.
According to John Sayles Sunshine State (2002), Cobbs provides moral compass as a doctor who attempts to save his seaside Florida neighborhood from developers. (Previously, the actor and filmmaker worked together in the 1984 sci-fi comedy brother from another planet,
Cobbs begins the plot with Reginald, a security guard on the verge of retirement, night at the Museum (2006). He returned for the 2014 sequel.
Wilbert Francisco Cobbs was born on June 16, 1934. After graduating from Cleveland’s East Tech High School, he served in the US Air Force for eight years, where he experimented with stand-up comedy. He worked for IBM and sold cars before first acting on stage in an anti-apartheid musical in 1969 lost in the stars at Karamu House in his hometown.
Soon after he had roles in Ossie Davis’s film Purley and Luigi Pirandello’s Six characters in search of an author at the iconic Cleveland Theatre.
A year later Cobbs moved east and joined the Negro Ensemble Company in New York, where he worked with people like Davis, Ruby Dee, Adolph Caesar and Moses Gunn. “When I realized I could walk across the stage with people like that, I thought, ‘Maybe I can be an actor,'” he recalled in 2015.
With Caesar and Esther Rolle, Cobbs appeared Off-Broadway in 1971 ride a black horse and then Black Visions For Joseph Papp Public Theater.
For his first appearance on the big screen, he was seen on a metro platform. The taking of Pelham one two three (1974).
“I came back home to visit my mom and dad, and all of our friends and neighbors were at the movies, and everybody was waiting for me to make an appearance,” he said in 2013. “I walked up to a policeman on the subway and said, ‘Hey, man. What’s going on?'”
He then studied on Broadway. Black Picture Show And the first breeze of summer In 1975.
Cobbs’ film bio also included greased Lightning (1977), Business Center (1983), Cotton Club (1984), The color of money (1986), New Jack City (1991), the hard way (1991), The People Under the Stairs (1991), demolition Man (1993), Things to Do in Denver When You’re Dead (1995), hope Floats (nineteen ninety eight), a mighty wind (2003), three days till vegas (2007), get low (2009) and the Muppets (2011).
Cobbs was also a regular on Sam Waterston’s show. I’ll fly away, The Michael Richards ShowJulianne Nicholson’s other people and Matthew Perry’s Continue readingAnd he made guest appearances in several other series, Equalizer, kate and allie And the Sopranos To six feet Under And yes dear,
