Demond Wilson, who played Lamont Sanford on Sanford and Son, dies at 79

Demond Wilson

The Black Insider

Demond Wilson, the star most famous as the actor who played Lamont Sanford, the long-suffering son of a reputedly hot-tempered junk dealer, in the groundbreaking 1970s sitcom Sanford and Son, is dead. He was 79.

Wilson died 30 January 2026, in his Palm Springs, California home, of complications with cancer, as confirmed by his publicist and family.

Wilson, a face that was well-known to the millions of Americans in the era when television was at its prime time, became a star in 1972 when he appeared as Lamont in front of comedian Redd Foxx. The show based on a British sitcom of the same title, Steptoe and Son, was one of the defining sitcoms of the decade combining devastating insult comedy with social commentary, as well as depicting the life of working-class black people in a way that was not focused on prime time television at the time.

Wilson was born in Valdosta, Georgia, and grew up in Harlem, after the Vietnam War, when he transitioned to the acting profession and began early appearances on TV that catapulted him to the role that became his trademark. He did not stop working in television after the end of Sanford and Son in 1977 appearing on such series like Baby given the existence of the show. I’m Back" and The New Odd Couple, though eventually left Hollywood to pursue ministry and service work, which would later become the cornerstone to his publicity in the decades that followed. Published reports indicate that Wilson has a wife and children.