El PASO, Texas (Reuters) – Sherman Hemsley, the actor who played George Jefferson on television in “The Jeffersons,” a 1970s sitcom that was one of the first to focus on a black family, has died at age 74 in El Paso, Texas, his representative said.
“Sherman Hemsley has been pronounced dead El Paso Sheriff’s Department has confirmed,” the actor’s agent Todd Frank said in a statement.
The cause and time of death was not immediately clear, and a sheriff’s representative could not be reached for comment.
Hemsley’s character of George Jefferson was the affluent and sometimes scheming owner of a dry cleaning business who lived in a New York luxury apartment with his wife, Louise. They had a son named Lionel.
“The Jeffersons,” a spinoff of creator Norman Lear’s more politically-oriented show “All In the Family.” In that show, the Jeffersons were introduced as the neighbors of Archie and Edith Bunker.
“The Jeffersons” ran from 1975 to 1985, and after that show the Philadelphia-born Hemsley went on to guest star in everything from “The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air” to a role in the series “Family Guy.”
