Bill Cobbs, actor of Night at the Museum, The Bodyguard and Air Bud, dies aged 90 | Culture

Bill Cobbs, a veteran actor who racked up nearly 200 credits over a five-decade career — including roles in The Bodyguard and Night at the Museum — has died at the age of 90.

He died “peacefully” Tuesday evening at his home in Riverside, California, his brother Thomas G. Cobbs confirmed. His publicist Chuck I Jones told the Associated Press that natural causes were likely the cause of the death.

Cobbs’ brother remembers him as “a beloved partner, big brother, uncle, surrogate parent, godfather and friend.”

“Bill recently happily celebrated his 90th birthday surrounded by his loved ones,” he wrote. “As a family, we are comforted to know that Bill has found peace and eternal rest with his Heavenly Father. We ask for your prayers and encouragement during this time.

A Cleveland native, Cobbs appeared in films including the Coen brothers’ The Hudsucker Proxy, as Whitney Houston’s manager in Martin Scorsese’s 1986 sports drama The Bodyguard, The Color of Money, Demolition Man, the coach in Air Bud and the security guard in Night at the. Museum. He made his first appearance on the big screen in a short-lived role in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three in 1974.

“All of our friends and neighbors went to see the movie and everyone was waiting for me to appear,” Cobbs recalled in a 2013 interview. “I walk up to a police officer on the subway and say, ‘Hey, man . What is going on?'”

He became a lifelong actor with around 200 film and television credits. The lion’s share of these came in his 50s, 60s and 70s, as filmmakers and TV producers turned to him again and again to imbue small but essential roles with a dried-out, worn-out soul.

In 2020, he won a Daytime Emmy for his role as Mr. Hendrickson on Dino Dana, a Canadian children’s educational show.

Cobbs has appeared in television series such as The Sopranos, The West Wing, The Equalizer, Six Feet Under, Sesame Street and Good Times.

Cobbs rarely got the kind of major roles that stand out and win awards. Instead, Cobbs was a familiar, memorable man who left an impression on audiences, regardless of screen time. He won a Daytime Emmy Award for Outstanding Limited Performance in a Daytime Program in the Series Dino Dana in 2020.

Wendell Pierce, who starred alongside Cobbs on I’ll Fly Away and The Gregory Hines Show, remembered Cobbs as “a father figure, a griot, an iconic entertainer who framed by the way he led his life as an actor,” he wrote. on Twitter/X.

Wilbert Francisco Cobbs, born June 16, 1934, served eight years in the United States Air Force after graduating from high school in Cleveland. In the years following his service, Cobbs sold cars. One day, a customer asked him if he wanted to act in a play. Cobbs first appeared on stage in 1969. He began acting in the Cleveland Theatre and later moved to New York City where he joined the Negro Ensemble Company, performing alongside Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

Cobbs later said that acting seemed to him a way to express the human condition, particularly during the civil rights movement of the late 1960s.

“To be an artist, you have to have a sense of giving,” Cobbs said in a 2004 interview. “Art is kind of a prayer, right? We respond to what we see around us, what we feel, and how things affect us mentally and spiritually.

Associated Press contributed to this report