Actor Sherman Hemsley dead at 74
Sherman Hemsley (the man who brought George Jefferson to vivid life) has died at age 74. The accomplished stage actor achieved his widest fame in a role he raised to comic greatness – George Jefferson, the egotistical, strutting centerpiece of The Jeffersons.
Hemsley took a part that could have been clownish and exaggerated — George Jefferson, the braying entrepeneur striving to, as the show’s theme song said: “move on up” — and made George a vital, three-dimensional character, and an important advance in the depiction of black characters in sitcoms. George’s ego and selfishness were often brought into line by his wife, Isabel Sanford’s Louise Jefferson (George’s beloved “Weezy”), but the force of the character derived from the tremendous ambition, frustration, and anger George felt toward the world.
Sherman Hemsley.
Actor Sherman Hemsley, who rose to fame in the 1970s as the wise-cracking father in the hit sitcom The Jeffersons, has died at the age of 74, police said on Tuesday.
Hemsley was found dead in his El Paso, Texas home. No foul play is suspected – local police said in a statement.
The Jeffersons was one of the longest-running US television shows with a predominantly black cast. It focused on how the family adjusted to its newfound affluence after the success of a dry cleaning business.
The show explored serious themes such as race and class – and Hemsley’s character George Jefferson was a notable bigot who did not like the interracial marriage of his neighbours in the upscale Manhattan apartment.
“It was groundbreaking” – Hemsley said in a 2003 interview with the Archive of American Television.
“We were worried about the interracial marriage – and said ‘Oh wow, it’s going to get us cancelled because nobody had done it before’.”
But reaction to the show was largely positive, Hemsley said, adding he was surprised at how well George Jefferson was received.
The show was not as overtly political as All in the Family, in which the Jeffersons were first introduced as neighbours to an even more notable bigot, Archie Bunker.
The El Paso, Texas, police said in a press release that the actor was found at a residence “without signs of life.” And that the cause of death is pending autopsy results. Police do not suspect foul play.
On “The Jeffersons,” Hemsley played a dry-cleaning tycoon who’d worked his way up from a small store to a chain. Isabel Sanford played his wife Louise, whom George often called Weezie, and Marla Gibbs played the couple’s maid, Florence.
As with producer Norman Lear’s “All in the Family,” the show didn’t shy away from racial humor and jokes. Hemsley’s George was in his own way as stubborn and prejudiced as Archie Bunker, regularly trying to exploit his own maid, and often delivering jokes at the expense of Helen and Tom Willis, a married couple of different races.
“The Jeffersons” ran from 1975 to 1985. After that show ended, Hemsley moved on to star as Deacon Earnest Frye on the sitcom “Amen.”
Hemsley also performed on Broadway and appeared on “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air,” “The Hughleys” and “Clunkers.” He also voiced Triceratops B.P. Richfield on Jim Henson’s “Dinosaurs.”
Hemsley was nominated for an Emmy and a Golden Globe, both for his “Jeffersons” role.
In 1989, he released a single – “Ain’t That A Kick in the Head.”
Hemsley never married and has no children. He was living in El Paso, Texas at the time of his death.