Grady Demond Wilson, the actor known for portraying Lamont Sanford on Sanford and Son, has died. He was 79.
The actor’s son Demond Wilson Jr. told TMZ that he died on Friday at his Palm Springs home from complications with cancer. Demond Jr. did not disclose what type of cancer his father had.
“I loved him. He was a great man,” Demond Jr. told the outlet.
Born Oct. 13, 1946 in Valdosta, Georgia, Wilson grew up in New York City, making his Broadway debut as a child, before joining the US Army and serving in Vietnam, where he was wounded. Upon his return to the states, Wilson appeared in some Broadway and off-Broadway shows before moving to Hollywood.
Following his appearance in a 1971 episode of CBS’s All in the Family, Wilson won the titular role of Lamont Sanford in Sanford and Son, opposite Redd Foxx’s patriarch Fred G. Sanford. The beloved sitcom, adapted by Norman Lear from the British series Steptoe and Son, ran for six seasons on NBC from 1972 to ’77.
Redd Foxx as Fred G. Sanford and Demond Wilson as Lamont Sanford in ‘Sanford and Son’ (NBCU Photo Bank/NBCUniversal via Getty Images)
Wilson then went on to star as Raymond Ellis in the short-lived 1978 CBS sitcom Baby… I’m Back!, playing a compulsive gambler trying to win back his family. He also played Oscar Madison in ABC’s The New Odd Couple (1982-’83).
His TV credits also include episodes of Mission: Impossible, Love Boat and Girlfriends, and he appeared in films like Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970), The Organization (1971), Full Moon High (1981) and Hammerlock (2000).
Wilson, who was also a Christian evangelist and ordained minister, married model Cicely Johnston in 1974, and they shared six children and multiple grandchildren.