Veteran American actor Bill Cobbs, known for playing Reginald in ‘Night at the Museum’, has passed away at the age of 90. His publicist, Chuck I. Jones said that Cobbs died of natural causes at his home in Riverside.
Born on June 16, 1934, in Cleveland, Cobbs graduated from East Tech High School in his hometown. He served for eight years in the U.S. Air Force, where he dabbled in stand-up comedy. After his military service, Cobbs worked for IBM and sold cars before making his stage debut in 1969 in the anti-apartheid musical ‘Lost in the Stars’ at Karamu House in Cleveland.
Cobbs was acclaimed for his performance as Whitney Houston’s manager in ‘The Bodyguard’ (1992), the older brother of Medgar Evers in Rob Reiner’s ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’ (1996), a jazz pianist in Tom Hanks’ ‘That Thing You Do!’ (1996), and Master Tinker, builder of the Tin Woodsman, in Sam Raimi’s ‘Oz the Great and Powerful’ (2013).
He appeared on TV in shows such as ‘The Slap Maxwell Story’, ‘The Drew Carey Show’, ‘The Gregory Hines Show’, and ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’. He portrayed Moses in the Coen brothers’ 1994 film ‘The Hudsucker Proxy’, a mystical clockman whose power to freeze time aids Tim Robbins’ character, Norville Barnes.
Cobbs played a supporting role in ‘Night at the Museum’ as Reginald, a security guard on the verge of retirement. His other notable roles include a basketball coach and retired basketball player Arthur Chaney in Disney’s ‘Air Bud’ and Charles Evers, the older brother of Medgar Evers, in Rob Reiner’s ‘Ghosts of Mississippi’. He also played the fictional jazz pianist Del Paxton in Tom Hanks’ ‘That Thing You Do!’ and had a brief appearance in the 2010 film ‘The Search for Santa Paws’.
In 2020, Bills Cobbs also made a guest appearance in the two-part series finale of ‘Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.’
