With Robert Guillaume’s death, entertainment lost an icon
Emmy Award-winning actor Robert Guillaume died Tuesday at 89, leaving behind a legacy of critical acclaim, groundbreaking performances and much inspiration.
The entertainment world lost an icon Tuesday when Robert Guillaume passed away at the age of 89. Per the New York Times, he died from complications of the prostate cancer he’d been battling for more than two decades.
But even that, in its crushing sadness, exemplified Robert Guillaume. He was a fighter, a man who not only met challenges but defeated them, and his example motivated others to rise to their own best selves.
For me, Guillaume will always be Isaac Jaffe, the gruff but peerless managing editor he played for two seasons on ABC‘s Sports Night. Isaac came out of retirement after a legendary career, which included being London bureau chief at CNN, just because he loved sports and wanted to be a part of it.
That was something that stuck with me as a college student, sitting in a tiny basement film library watching episodes of Sports Night I’d taped off the TV. I wanted to have a boss like Isaac Jaffe. It was Guillaume’s performance that reminded me to do what I loved, and almost 20 years later, I have a career to show for it. And I know I’m not alone in being affected by his work.
Yet I was too young to have experienced the numerous ways Guillaume changed the world of entertainment well before Sports Night. He began his career on stage, where he earned a Tony Award nomination for Guys and Dolls, and was the first African-American actor to portray The Phantom of the Opera. It was only the first time he’d change the way people thought about a role.
His first role as a TV series regular was portraying Benson DuBois in the 1970s smash hit Soap, and he proved so popular in the part that he got his own spin-off Benson from 1979 to 1986. He won two Emmy Awards for the character, which could’ve so easily been one-dimensional as the black butler. But where others saw a potential stereotype, Guillaume saw opportunity.
He’d say later in his autobiography that he wanted black people to be proud of Benson, and who wouldn’t be, from how he rose from servant to gubernatorial candidate. He was no longer just a comedy character, if he ever really was. He was an example of working hard and being true to yourself, no matter what the color of your skin or where you started.
There were so many other memorable roles on Guillaume’s resume, too, whether it was making himself a childhood favorite as the voice of Rafiki in Disney’s The Lion King or playing Fredrick Douglass in the Civil War miniseries North & South. Whatever the genre, whoever he played, any time Robert Guillaume showed up in a project, he elevated a role. He made each character have something to say, and it was always worth hearing.
That’s before we get into who he was as a human being. Guillaume served his country in the Army for two years and worked tirelessly to even get to what would become a massive acting career, where he was by all accounts a remarkable man throughout.
Guillaume was an incredible actor, but he was far more than just that. He was someone who inspired with how hard he worked and the commitment he had to each role. He set a high bar both on and off screen, and the entertainment world won’t be the same without him.
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Whether you knew him as Isaac, or Benson, or Rafiki, whether he made you laugh or made you think — or both — Robert Guillaume touched so many people in so many ways. Even though most of us never knew him, we’ll always know the impact his life had on ours.