Demond Wilson, the actor who played Lamont Sanford on Sanford and Son, has died. He was 79. His longtime publicist, Mark Goldman, confirmed the death in a statement, and the actor’s son said Wilson died Jan. 30 at his home in Palm Springs after complications from cancer.
Wilson became a fixture of 1970s network comedy as the exasperated son and business partner to Redd Foxx’s Fred Sanford on NBC. The show, developed by Norman Lear and Bud Yorkin from the British series Steptoe and Son, turned a junkyard setting into a weekly father-son battle of wills, with Lamont’s deadpan pushback balancing Foxx’s blowups. Yorkin once explained the engine of the comedy this way: “they … complained and so forth, they couldn’t live without each other.”
Goldman said Wilson’s family requested privacy and that “no further details are available” as they grieve. He added that he worked with Wilson for 15 years and felt the loss “profoundly.”
Born Grady Demond Wilson in 1946, he grew up in New York, studied dance, and performed in theater before serving with the U.S. Army in Vietnam. He reached television through guest roles on All in the Family, Mission: Impossible and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and he appeared in the film Cotton Comes to Harlem before landing the part that made him famous.
After “Sanford and Son,” he led the sitcom Baby… I’m Back! and later starred in The New Odd Couple. In the 1980s he stepped away from Hollywood, became an ordained minister, and later helped launch Restoration House of America, aimed at supporting former inmates. He is survived by his wife, Cicely Johnston, six children and two grandchildren, according to published reports.
