The American actor has had key roles in several films
From:
Adnkronos
Los Angeles, June 27. – (Adnkronos) – American actor Bill Cobbs, a character actor who had key roles in films such as ‘Mister Hula Hoop’, ‘The Sunshine Coast’ and ‘Night at the Museum’, has died at the age of 90. The death occurred from natural causes at his home in Riverside, California. The announcement of his disappearance was made by his family on social media and the news was confirmed by his agent Chuck I. Jones to various specialized newspapers.
Born Wilbert Francisco Cobbs, or Bill, in Cleveland, Ohio, on June 16, 1934, the actor excelled in both comedy and drama: he played Whitney Houston’s manager Devaney in ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992), Medgar Evers’ older brother in Rob Reiner’s ‘Ghosts of the Past’ (1996), a jazz pianist in Tom Hanks’ ‘Music Graffiti’ (1996) and Master Tinker, builder of the Tin Woodman, in Sam Raimi’s ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ (2013).
Bill Cobbs achieved great fame with Shawn Levy’s ‘Night at the Museum’ (2006), where he played Reginald, the guardian of the Museum of Natural History in New York, acting alongside Ben Stiller, Dick Van Dyke, Mickey Rooney and Robin Williams. Cobbs reprized the role in the third installment of the saga ‘Night at the Museum: The Pharaoh’s Secret’ (2014).
In Joel Coen’s ‘The Hush Pucker’ (1994), Cobbs played Moses, the mystical clock-man whose ability to stop time comes not too soon for Norville Barnes (Tim Robbins). He also played the wise-cracking coach who puts a basketball-playing dog on the Timberwolves’ roster in ‘Air Bud’ (1997). In John Sayles’ ‘The Sunshine Coast’ (2002), Cobbs provides a moral compass as a doctor struggling to save his Florida beachfront neighborhood from developers. The actor and director previously worked together on the 1984 sci-fi comedy ‘The Brotherhood’.
After graduating from East Tech High School in Cleveland, Cobbs served eight years in the U.S. Air Force, where he experimented with stand-up comedy. He worked for IBM and sold cars before appearing on stage for the first time in 1969 in the anti-apartheid musical Lost in the Stars at Karamu House in his hometown. He continued to act in theater, including a role in Luigi Pirandello’s Six Characters in Search of an Author. In 1971, he joined the Negro Ensemble Company in New York, working with artists such as Ruby Dee, Adolph Caesar, and Moses Gunn.
His film debut came in 1974 in John Sargent’s ‘The Train Robbery’. Cobbs’s film credits include supporting roles in John Landis’s ‘Trading Places’ (1983), Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘The Cotton Club’ (1984), Martin Scorsese’s ‘The Color of Money’ (1986), John Badham’s ‘The Force Awakens’ (1991), ‘New Jack City’ (1991), ‘Demolition Man’ (1993), ‘The Gift’ (2006), ‘The Funeral Party’ (2009), ‘The Yule Ball’ (2010), ‘Palm Springs Christmas’ (2014).
According to the Imdb database, Cobbs has acted in 195 films and television series. On television, he has appeared in numerous episodes of popular series such as ‘Avengers: Endgame’, ‘Spenser’, ‘L.A. Law’, ‘Bird’s Law’, ‘ER’, ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’, ‘The Sopranos’, ‘Touched by an Angel’, ‘A Divorce Date’ and ‘CSI: Crime Scene Investigation’.
