He portrayed a normal, loving, everyday Black teenager — rare for TV at the time. He died Sunday after a current pulled him underwater in Costa Rica.

Mr. Warner, who played the only son of Bill Cosby’s character on the beloved 1980s sitcom, drowned in Costa Rica.

As Theo Huxtable, Malcolm-Jamal Warner had to represent young Black men on the highest-rated show on television while still appealing to middle America, writes Dart Adams. Watching another creative Black young man made me feel like I could also achieve big things,