Actor in ‘Grace and Frankie,’ ‘G.I. Joe’ and ‘Hill Street Blues’ Dead at 95: RIP to Lee Weaver

Lee Weaver, the beloved character actor known for his work on The Bill Cosby Show, Grace and Frankie, G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, and Hill Street Blues, has died. He was 95.

Weaver’s family announced Saturday that the “beloved husband, father, and veteran actor passed away peacefully on September 22, 2025, at his home in Los Angeles at the age of 95.”

Weaver, who most recently played Mel Cordray on Netflix’s Grace and Frankie from 2017 to 2020, has a long list of credits to his name, including the role of Brian Kincaid on The Bill Cosby Show (1969-71), voicing Alpine in the animated television series G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero (1985-86), and stealing scenes as the exuberant exhibitionist “Buck Naked” on Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue (1982-84, 1994).

Weaver also appeared on a 1977 episode of The Jeffersons as a friend of George Jefferson, and played Ricardo on Easy Street from 1986 to 1987 after being cast as the original mailman on 227 in 1985. Weaver also appeared on an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air in 1991 as Ed Downer, a handyman who became of interest to Philip Banks’ mom, and as a waiter and Mr. Fields on The Cosby Show in 1991 and 1987.

On the big screen, Weaver appeared as a blind seer in the 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, as Leroy in Donnie Darko, and as Joe in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, among other roles.

Weaver was born in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on April 10, 1930, and was raised by his Aunt Mattie and Uncle Lee Weaver until the age of 14, when he left home to attend high school in Tallahassee. After high school, Weaver graduated from Florida A&M University, after which he enlisted in the U.S. Army for four years.

Upon returning from the Army in 1956, Weaver moved to New York, where he worked as a linotype engineer for The New York Times while moonlighting as a jazz promoter at the legendary Birdland, where he booked jazz greats like Cannonball and Nat Adderley, Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Sarah Vaughn, John Coltrane, Herb Ellis, Lee Morgan, Freddie Hubbard, and the Heath Brothers, among others.

Cannonball would go on to honor Weaver with his composition, “The Weaver,” written by Yusef Lateef for Lee on his album Nippon Soul, released in 1964.

Weaver was married to fellow actress Ta-Tanisha, with whom he welcomed daughter Leis La-Te.