{"id":2259843,"date":"2026-01-31T15:41:18","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:41:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2259843"},"modified":"2026-01-31T15:41:18","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T15:41:18","slug":"actor-grady-demond-wilson-sanford-and-son-star-dies-at-79","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/actor-grady-demond-wilson-sanford-and-son-star-dies-at-79\/","title":{"rendered":"Actor Grady Demond Wilson, \u2018Sanford and Son\u2019 star, dies at 79"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The show earned several Primetime Emmy nominations during its run and became a standard-bearer for Black sitcoms for generations.<\/p>\n

An icon of \u201970s television has passed away.<\/p>\n

Grady Demond Wilson, best known for playing Lamont Sanford on the classic NBC sitcom \u201cSanford and Son<\/a>,\u201d has died, according to TMZ<\/a>. The actor and author was 79 years old.<\/p>\n

Per his son, Demond Wilson Jr., the elder Wilson passed at his Palm Springs, California home on Friday (Jan. 30) due to complications from cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved him,\u201d Wilson Jr. told the outlet about his father. \u201cHe was a great man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professionally, Wilsoin went by his middle and last name and starred in the hit NBC comedy alongside Redd Foxx from 1972 to 1977. Over the course of five seasons, the duo became comedy royalty and a precursor to modern father-son sitcom duos.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody ever called me that,\u201d Wilson said<\/a> of the name \u201cGrady,\u201d hence why they gave the name to a character who was Fred Sanford\u2019s best friend. \u201cWhen [my mother] was carrying me to my father, \u2018I want this boy, I want him to be a dancer.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Vietnam veteran, Wilson initially heard that the network wanted Richard Pryor to play Lamont before the role went to him.<\/p>\n

\u201dI said, \u2018C\u2019mon, you can\u2019t put a comedian with a comedian. You\u2019ve got to have a straight man.\u2019\u00a0Dick Martin\u00a0<\/strong>was the nut,\u00a0Dan Rowan\u00a0was the straight guy\u201d on\u00a0\u201cRowan & Martin\u2019s Laugh-In,\u201d he said in a 2022 interview celebrating the 50th anniversary of the show.<\/p>\n

Wilson\u2019s career somewhat stalled after \u201cSanford and Son.\u201d He starred in one season of \u201cBaby \u2026 I\u2019m Back\u201d from 1977 to 1978, then made guest appearances on shows like \u201cThe Love Boat.\u201d He once again starred in a TV series in the 1980s, a revamp of the classic \u201cOdd Couple\u201d from 1982 to 1983. However, another generation of TV viewers may remember him playing Kenneth Miles in four episodes of the comedy \u201cGirlfriends\u201d in 2004 and 2005.<\/p>\n

His last known credit was the TV series \u201cEleanor\u2019s Bench,\u201d which is available on Prime Video.<\/p>\n

Over the years, several of Wilson\u2019s fellow \u201cSanford and Son\u201d cast members have passed away. Raymond Allen, who famously played Ned The Wineo on the series, died in 2020 and Nathaniel Taylor, who played Rollo on the show, died in 2019.<\/p>\n

More must-reads:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The show earned several Primetime Emmy nominations during its run and became a standard-bearer for Black sitcoms for generations. An icon of \u201970s television has passed away. Grady Demond Wilson, best known for playing Lamont Sanford on the classic NBC sitcom \u201cSanford and Son,\u201d has died, according to TMZ. The actor and author was 79 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2259844,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[437671,415145,314870],"class_list":["post-2259843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-demond-wilson","tag-sanford-and-son","tag-television-series"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Actor-Grady-Demond-Wilson-\u2018Sanford-and-Son-star-dies-at.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259843","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2259843"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259843\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2259845,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2259843\/revisions\/2259845"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2259844"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2259843"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2259843"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2259843"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}