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Demond Wilson, who played Fred Sanford’s put-upon son Lamont on the the long-running hit “Sanford and Son,” died Friday at his Palm Springs, California, home. He was 79
His son, Demond Wilson Jr., confirmed to TMZ that the cause was cancer.
He was born Grady Demond Wilson on October 13, 1946, in Valdosta, Georgia. His birth name would later be used by “Sanford and Son” producers for the name of a popular character on the show played by Whitman Mayo.
Wilson was a dancer first, making his Broadway debut as a child in “The Green Pastures” (1951).
After serving in Vietnam, where he was wounded, he returned to his performing roots, working on the stage in NYC and then launching a film and TV career.
His first film was the blaxploitation classic “Cotton Comes to Harlem” (1970), co-written and directed by Ossie Davis, with whom he had acted on Broadway. He also appeared in Sidney Poitier’s “The Organization” (1971).
His TV debut was a memorable guest spot on the Norman Lear classic sitcom “All in the Family” in 1971, on which he played a burglar opposite Cleavon Little. After an appearance on “Mission: Impossible” (1971), he landed the role of Lamont Sanford on Lear’s “Sanford and Son” in 1972.
As one of the show’s two main characters, Wilson was the short-tempered straight man to outrageous comic Redd Foxx’s crafty Fred Sanford, owner of a junkyard. The show, based on the British hit “Steptoe and Son” (1962-1974), became the earliest all-Black sitcom on U.S. TV after the racially insensitive “Amos ‘n’ Andy” 20 years before. But in “Sanford and Son,” the broad humor was loving, and the Black community embraced it as a welcome depiction of a Black father and son that had been missing on TV.
Wilson appeared on every episode, something even Redd Foxx did not do — he was off the series for several episodes over a salary dispute.
With Wilson’s death, only Hal Williams, 87, remains among actors who appeared on the series 20 times or more.
After the highly rated sitcom was canceled in 1977, Wilson headlined the short-lived series “Baby… I’m Back!” (1978), about a compulsive gambler who vanishes and is declared legally dead by his family, only to return when he gets jealous that his wife is about to remarry.
Next, he was Oscar Madison to Ron Glass’ Felix Unger on “The New Odd Couple” (1982-1983). It, too, had a short run.
Along with various guest spots on TV, he much later recurred on “Girlfriends” (2004-2005), his final on-screen work.
In his later years, Wilson — an ordained minister since 1984 — overcame substance abuse and wrote faith-based books. He also published “Second Banana: The Bittersweet Memoirs of the ‘Sanford & Son’ Years” in 2009, in which he discussed his rocky relationship with Foxx. The two saw each other in person just once after the show ended.
Wilson is survived by Cicely Johnston, a former model, to whom he had been wed since 1974, as well as by their six kids and two grandkids.