'Soap' and 'Benson' actor Robert Guillaume dies at age 89

A photo of actor Robert Guillaume from 1991 in Los Angeles. The former 'Soap' actor died on Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2017. (AP)

Robert Guillaume, known for his Emmy, Tony and Grammy-winning work, as well as TV sitcoms "Soap" and "Benson," has died at age 89.

The St. Louis-born performer died at home Tuesday in Los Angeles, according to his widow, Donna Brown Guillaume. He had been battling prostate cancer, she told The Associated Press.

Among Guillaume's achievements was playing Nathan Detroit in the first all-black version of "Guys and Dolls," earning a Tony nomination in 1977. He became the first African-American to sing the title role of "Phantom of the Opera," appearing with an all-white cast in Los Angeles.

Fans may also know him as the voice of Rafiki in Disney's "The Lion King," for which he won a Grammy award for spoken-word recording in 1995. The star read the audiobook of the movie in the voice of the iconic character. Prior to his film and sitcom success, he guest-starred on sitcoms such as "All in the Family," "Good Times," "Sanford and Son" and "The Jeffersons." According to Variety, it's these guest roles that led to his supporting role on "Soap."

While playing in "Guys and Dolls, he was asked to test for the role of an acerbic butler of a governor's mansion in "Soap," a primetime TV sitcom that satirized soap operas.

"The minute I saw the script, I knew I had a live one," he recalled in 2001. "Every role was written against type, especially Benson, who wasn't subservient to anyone. To me, Benson was the revenge for all those stereotyped guys who looked like Benson in the '40s and '50s (movies) and had to keep their mouths shut."

The character became so popular that ABC was persuaded to launch a spinoff, simply called "Benson," which lasted from 1979 to 1986. The series made Guillaume wealthy and famous, but he regretted that Benson's wit had to be toned down to make him more appealing as the lead star.

"I always wanted kids of any background to understand the characters I've portrayed were real," he is quoted as saying on his official website. "That the solutions they found were true and possible. It has always been important to me to stress that there was no diminution of power or universality just because my charaters are African-American."

This rang true in his portrayal of Benson, who The Hollywood Reporter notes began life as a butler/cook and went on to be the state budget director and, finally, lieutenant governor. He even ran for governor, but the race was never decided as the show went off the air.

Along with Brown, he co-founded the Confetti Entertainment Company, which publishes read-along books and tapes that later inspired the award-winning HBO series "Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child." It's through this company that he earned his Grammy.

Robert Guillaume accepts his Emmy award for his role on 'Benson' alongside Linda Grey in 1985. (AP)

Additionally, he was a major contributor to charitable organizations such as TransAfrica, AmFar, Sickle Cell Disease Association of America and the Special Olympics

The career of Robert Guillaume (pronounced with a hard "g'': gee-yome) almost ended in January 1999 at Walt Disney Studio. He was appearing in the TV series "Sports Night" as Isaac Jaffee, executive producer of a sports highlight show. Returning to his dressing room after a meal away from the studio, he suddenly collapsed.

"I fell on the floor, and I couldn't get up," he told an interviewer in 2001. "I kept floundering about on the floor and I didn't know why I couldn't do it. I didn't know it was it was caused by my left side being weaker than the other."

Fortunately, St. Joseph Hospital was directly across from the studio. The 71-year-old actor was taken there and treated for a stroke— the result of a blood clot that blocked circulation of blood to the brain. They are fatal in 15 percent of the cases.

Guillaume's stroke was minor, causing relatively slight damage and little effect on his speech. After six weeks in the hospital, he underwent a therapy of walks and sessions in the gym. He returned to the second season of "Sports Talk," and it was written into the script that Isaac Jaffee was recovering from a stroke. Because of slim ratings, the second season proved to be the last for the much-praised show.

Guillaume resumed his career and traveled as a new spokesman for the American Stroke Association. He also made appearance for the American Heart Association.

"I'm a bastard, a Catholic, the son of a prostitute, and a product of the poorest slums of St. Louis."

This was the opening of "Guillaume: A Life," his 2002 autobiography in which he laid bare his troubled life. He was born fatherless on Nov. 30, 1927, in St. Louis, one of four children. His mother named him Robert Peter Williams; when he became a performer he adopted Guillaume, a French version of Williams, believing the change would give him distinction.

In this Nov. 18, 1986 file photo, poses for a photo in Los Angeles. Guillaume poses in Los Angeles. (AP)

His early years were spent in a back-alley apartment without plumbing or electricity; an outhouse was shared with two dozen people. His alcoholic mother hated him because of his dark skin, and his grandmother rescued him, taught him to read and enrolled him in a Catholic school.

Seeking but denied his mother's love and scorned by nuns and students because of his dark skin, the boy became a rebel, and that carried into his adult life. He was expelled from school and then the Army, though he was granted an honorable discharge. He fathered a daughter and abandoned the child and her mother. He did the same to his first wife and two sons and to another woman and a daughter.

He worked in a department store, the post office and as St. Louis's first black streetcar motorman. Seeking something better, he enrolled at St. Louis University, excelling in philosophy and Shakespeare, and then at Washington University (St. Louis) where a music professor trained the young man's superb tenor singing voice.

After serving as an apprentice at theaters in Aspen, Colo., and Cleveland, the newly named Guillaume toured with Broadway shows "Finian's Rainbow," ''Golden Boy," ''Porgy and Bess" and "Purlie," and began appearing on sitcoms such as "The Jeffersons" and "Sanford and Son." Then came "Soap" and "Benson." His period of greatest success was marred by tragedy when his 33-year-old son Jacques died of AIDS.

Guillaume's first stable relationship came when he married TV producer Donna Brown in the mid-1980s and fathered a daughter, Rachel. At last he was able to shrug off the bitterness he had felt throughout his life.

"To assuage bitterness requires more than human effort," he wrote at the end of his autobiography. "Relief comes from a source we cannot see but can only feel. I am content to call that source love."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.