The two-time Emmy winner and Grammy holder was known for a pair of classic sitcoms—and The Lion King.
Robert Guillaume, the two-time Emmy-winning star of Benson, died Tuesday at the age of 89 in his Los Angeles home of complications from prostate cancer, according to Variety. He is best known for playing Benson DuBois in the sitcom Soap, as well as in its spinoff, Benson—performances that earned him two Emmys, for supporting actor and lead actor in a comedy—and also for voicing the character Rafiki in Disney’s The Lion King. His ineffably charming performance as the mischievous mandrill earned Guillaume a spoken-word Grammy, as well as the adoration of children across the globe.
Guillaume, born Robert Peter Williams, worked for more than 50 years as an actor in TV, film, and theater. Many of his roles showcased his dry wit—a gift that allowed him to become a fan favorite on series like Soap. His butler character, Benson DuBois, could have been a regressive trope—but Guillaume worked to make sure that his character resonated more deeply than that. As Variety notes, some critics did call Benson a “male Mammy” character, but Guillaume was well aware of the potential for regression in his role, and actively worked to combat it. As he recalled in a 2016 interview, “When I got the role of Benson, I was not the happiest camper. I had reservations, because you’re serving food, you’re serving a family, and all that sort of thing, and it thrusts you back in time. It's as though nothing has changed since the 1800s. But then the more I examined the role and read the script, I figured out a way to take some of the stench off the idea.”
The trick? His delivery. Guillaume played the character with a trademark irreverence—one that, as he saw it, allowed him to portray a butler who wasn’t either servile or stereotypically buffoonish. At the same time, he tried to avoid falling into yet another stereotypical trap: “that terrible term that you’re either a buffoon if you’re black, or you play it with ‘dignity,’ ” Guillaume once said. “I hated that idea altogether, because I knew that dignity did not make people laugh. And I wanted desperately to make people laugh. And so I found a way to say what I was going to say in the script without demeaning black people or myself . . . What I think I struck was a chord in a lot of people who feel that the boss can go to hell on the weekend.”
Between Soap and Benson, Guillaume played the same character—who eventually moved up from working as a butler to becoming a government official—for almost a full decade. The actor also did memorable guest turns in several classic comedies, including Sanford and Son, All in the Family, The Jeffersons, Good Times, A Different World, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, and Moesha.
As we say goodbye, perhaps it’s best to look back at how the actor himself said he would like to be remembered: “I guess that I would like for them to think that I always played true to me . . . I think there’s dignity in truth, but not necessarily truth in dignity. Some people might [say] that the word ‘dignity’ inherently involves truth. I don't think so. I think that no matter what character I play, I would like to be true to it.