Robert Guillaume, who dreamed of being the first black tenor to sing at the Metropolitan Opera but settled for acting onstage and on television — and won Emmy Awards for playing the same character on two different ABC series — died on Tuesday at his home in Los Angeles. He was 89.
His wife, Donna Brown Guillaume, said the cause was complications of prostate cancer, which he had had for 25 years.
Mr. Guillaume’s most well-known character was Benson DuBois, who began as a caustic butler on the sitcom “Soap,” which ran from 1977 to 1981, and later worked for, and eventually campaigned against, the governor of an unspecified state on the spinoff “Benson” (1979-86).
The Following 8 Users Say Thank You to taco.vidal For This Useful Post:
He suffered a mild stroke while filming and Aaron Sorkin wrote that into the character. It made for some powerful scenes. I'm glad I have the show on DVD - I watched a bunch of episodes a few months ago.
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RIP Benson
