Sherman Hemsley was known roles in “The Jeffersons,” “Amen

Sherman Hemsley was known roles in “The Jeffersons,” “Amen

Sherman Hemsley, an actor best known for his overbearing sitcom roles, notably the upwardly mobile and bigoted African-American George Jefferson in the long-running show “The Jeffersons” and the egotistical minister in “Amen,” has died in El Paso. He was 74.

The death was confirmed by his agent, Todd Frank. No further details could be learned on when, where or how he died.

Hemsley, who had a home in El Paso, grew up in a rough Philadelphia neighborhood, quit high school and served in the Air Force before becoming a mainstay of a prominent black theater company in New York. By the 1980s, television had made him the most visible and successful black TV actor after Bill Cosby.

In 1973, Hemsley debuted as George Jefferson on the Norman Lear sitcom “All in the Family,” playing the bombastic paterfamilias who integrates a Queens neighborhood lorded over by Archie Bunker (Carroll O’Connor).

Jefferson, who owned a dry-cleaning store, was the black counterpart to Bunker’s working-class racist, and the chemistry between the two performers allowed them to spew bluster and ignorance in comic droves.

The Jeffersons spun off into their own series that aired on CBS from 1975 to 1985. In the new show, George Jefferson’s business success in dry cleaning allows him to move his family into a luxury high rise.

Hemsley said the role was counter to his own disposition, telling The Washington Post that Jefferson “seems like a wild man to me.” In finding the core of the man who made him popular with audiences for a decade, Hemsley added that George Jefferson is “like a little kid. You know, nobody really grows up. You just become more confused.”

After “The Jeffersons” folded, Hemsley played Deacon Ernest Frye in “Amen,” which aired on NBC from 1986 to 1991.