Veteran character actor Bill Cobbs, who became a wise-guy presence on screen into old age, has died. He was 90 years old.
Mr. Cobbs died Tuesday at his home in California’s Inland Empire, surrounded by family and friends, said publicist Chuck I. Jones. The cause of death was likely natural causes, Mr. Jones said.
A Cleveland native, Cobbs appeared in films such as “The Hudsucker Proxy,” “The Bodyguard” and “Night at the Museum.” His first film role was in 1974’s “Pelham 1-2-3.” He remained an actor throughout his life, appearing in about 200 films and TV shows, most of them in his 50s, 60s and 70s, as filmmakers and TV producers called on him time and time again for small but significant roles that imbued him with a wrinkled, jaded soul.
Cobbs has appeared in such television shows as The Sopranos, The West Wing, Sesame Street, and Good Times. He played Whitney Houston’s manager in The Bodyguard (1992), the mysterious watch man in the Coen brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy (1994), a doctor in John Sayles’ The Sunshine State (2002), a coach in Air Bud (1997), a security guard in Night at the Museum (2006), and a father figure in The Gregory Hines Show.
Cobbs rarely got the kind of big roles that stood out and won awards for. Instead, he was a relatable, memorable, everyday guy who made an impression on audiences regardless of his time on screen. In 2020, he won a Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Limited Performance in a Daytime Program for the series “Dino Dana.”
Wendell Pierce, who worked with Cobbs on “I’ll Fly Away” and “The Gregory Hines Show,” wrote on social media platform Twitter/X that he remembered Cobbs as “a father figure, a griot and an iconic artist who lived his life as an actor.”
Born June 16, 1934, Wilbert Francisco Cobbs served in the United States Air Force for eight years after graduating from Cleveland High School. During the years following his military service, Cobbs worked in car sales until one day, a customer asked him if he’d like to appear in a play. Cobbs first appeared on stage in 1969. He began acting in theaters in Cleveland before moving to New York, where he joined the Negro Ensemble Company and performed with Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.
Cobbs later said that acting resonated with him as a way to express the human condition, especially during the civil rights era of the late ’60s.
“To be an artist, you have to have a sense of giving,” Cobbs said in a 2004 interview. “Art is, in a way, like prayer. We respond to what we see around us, what we feel, and how things affect us mentally and spiritually.”
