Lee Weaver, the acquainted character actor identified for his work on The Invoice Cosby Present, the Loni Anderson-starring Straightforward Avenue and the Coen brothers’ O Brother, The place Artwork Thou?, has died. He was 95.
Weaver died Sept. 22 at his dwelling in Los Angeles, his household introduced. He “wove pleasure, depth and illustration into each position he performed and every little thing he did,” they mentioned.
Weaver performed Brian Kincaid, the brother of Invoice Cosby’s fitness center instructor, Chet Kincaid, on 1969-71’s The Invoice Cosby Present, and he stole scenes because the exhibitionist Buck Bare on the Steven Bochco collection Hill Avenue Blues in 1982-84 and NYPD Blue in 1994.
On the 1986-87 NBC comedy Straightforward Avenue, Weaver and Jack Elam portrayed a few down-on-their-luck roommates who transfer right into a mansion not too long ago inherited by a former Las Vegas showgirl (Anderson). That present, created by WKRP in Cincinnati’s Hugh Wilson, was canceled after one season.
In O Brother, The place Artwork Thou? (2000), Weaver had a memorable scene because the blind man who offers three escaped convicts (George Clooney, John Turturro, Tim Blake Nelson) a journey on a railroad handcar and a few mysterious recommendation about their future.
Weaver, the truth is, turned up in a number of different notable films throughout his lengthy profession, amongst them Vanishing Level (1971), Heaven Can Wait (1978), The Onion Area (1979), Bulworth (1998), How Stella Received Her Groove Again (1998), Donnie Darko (2001) and The 40-12 months-Outdated Virgin (2005).
The son of a chef, Lee Wellington Weaver was born on April 10, 1930, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He was raised by his Aunt Mattie and Uncle Lee till he was 14, when he left dwelling to attend highschool in Tallahassee after which Florida A&M.
At 22, Weaver enlisted within the U.S. Military and served for 4 years, then headed to New York, the place he labored as a linotype engineer for The New York Instances and moonlighted as a promoter on the legendary Birdland jazz membership. There, he booked such acts as Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughan, John Coltrane, Herb Ellis, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard and the Heath Brothers.
(Cannonball Adderley, a childhood pal and the very best man at his marriage ceremony, recorded a Yusef Lateef-written track referred to as “The Weaver” in honor of him that was featured on the saxophonist’s 1964 album, Nippon Soul.)
In one among his first performing gigs, Weaver performed assorted natives on the 1955-56 syndicated collection Sheena: Queen of the Jungle and a reporter in Al Capone (1959).
In 1967 and ’68, he appeared on episodes of the Cosby-starring NBC collection I Spy. And when Cosby was a visitor host on The Tonight Present again then, Weaver, in a recurring bit, can be introduced as a visitor however fail to make it on the present as a result of Cosby would run out of time. Weaver was then seen getting indignant in his dressing room.
Years later, Weaver would present up on The Cosby Present and on the Cosby-created A Completely different World.
Weaver saved busy within the Nineteen Seventies with work on such TV collection as Adam-12, Kojak, Sanford and Son, Good Instances, The Jeffersons, Cleaning soap and Starsky & Hutch and movies together with Cleopatra Jones (1973) and Home Calls (1978).
He supplied the voice of Alpine on the 1985-86 animated collection G.I. Joe: A Actual American Hero and in a pair of flicks.
His résumé additionally included the options The Misplaced Man (1969), Kiss Me Goodbye (1982), The Buddy System (1984), Wildcats (1986), The Two Jakes (1990), The Scout (1994), The Thirteenth Flooring (1999) and Max Rose (2013) and visitor stints on 227, It’s At all times Sunny in Philadelphia and The Recent Prince of Bel-Air.
Most not too long ago, he performed Mel Cordray on two episodes of Grace and Frankie.
Together with his spouse, actress Ta-Tanisha (Room 222), he had a daughter, Leis La-Te.