Who Is Still Alive From ‘Sanford and Son’?

53 years ago today, on Jan. 14, 1972, Sanford and Son debuted on NBC. Based on the British sitcom Steptoe and Son, Sanford followed the adventures of sassy, irritable Fred Sanford, and his son, Lamont, as they ran a scrap and junk business in Los Angeles’ Watts neighborhood. The first Black family sitcom, Sanford and Son was ratings hit, spending its first five season in the top 10.

In the years since, sadly, all but one major cast member from this groundbreaking series has passed on. Read on to find out who’s still with us, and what everyone went on to do after they left the junkyard for the last time.

Demond Wilson (78)

Born in 1946, Wilson was a Broadway performer and fought in Vietnam before he got his big break in 1972, when he won the role of Lamont Sanford (sometimes also known as “You big dummy” to his father, Fred). Wilson starred on the show for its entire run, and held down the second half of Sanford and Son‘s 1973-4 season, after Redd Foxx quit the show midway through over a pay dispute (he returned the following season).

After Sanford and Son wrapped up in 1977, he starred in his own sitcom, the short-lived Baby … I’m Back! in which he played an absentee husband and father trying to woo back his wife. The show ran for one season in 1978. He also starred as Oscar Madison in The New Odd Couple, which also ran for one season, from 1982-83.

Wilson stepped back from his film and TV acting career after this; his last performance was a four episode appearance on the TV show Girlfriends in 2004-5. In the time since, Wilson has focused largely on his faith; he is ordained as a minister in the Church of God in Christ, and has appeared and produced several faith-based plays that went on to tour nationally. In 1995, he formed Restoration House of America, an organization that works with former prison inmates.

He’s also turned to writing, penning several children’s books, religious literature, and the memoir Second Banana: The Bittersweet Memoirs of the Sanford & Son Years, which was published in 2009.

According to a 2014 interview, he only saw Redd Foxx one time after the show ended, in 1983, when TV producers were trying to put together an anniversary special for Foxx. According to Wilson, “we met at Redd’s office, but he was less than affable. I told those guys it was a bad idea … I had no animosity toward Foxx (for quitting) because I had a million dollar contract at CBS to do Baby… I’m Back!. My hurt was that he didn’t come to me about throwing the towel in — I found out in the hallway at NBC from a newscaster. I forgave him and I loved Redd, but I never forgot that. The love was there.”

Wilson and former model Cicely Johnston have been married since 1974, and have six children.

Redd Foxx (d. 1991)

Known as “the King of Party Records,” Foxx was born in 1922 in St. Louis, Missouri, under the name John Elroy Sanford (yes, that’s his real last name — and his father’s first name was actually Fred!). Foxx’s raunchy comedy career kicked off in the ’40s, and often appeared in the Black-owned theaters and nightclubs that were part of what was known as the “Chitlin Circuit.” Foxx’s reputation grew through the decades, and after making his film debut in Ossie Davis’  1970 Cotton Comes to Harlem, he was offered the starring role on Sanford and Son.

Foxx’s years on Sanford were marked by turmoil over pay; in 1974, he walked off the set of the show in protest because he wanted a 25% stake in the series’ ownership. He was written out of the rest of the season, sued by the production company, and returned the following season. Foxx pulled the plug on Sanford in 1977 in order to host The Redd Foxx Comedy Hour, a variety show that lasted for one season. He returned to the role for two seasons on Sanford, a spin-off show that did not include Wilson. That show ended in 1981. His 1986 sitcom, The Redd Foxx Show, only lasted one season.

His 1991 sitcom, The Royal Family, aired one season before Foxx had a heart attack on set and fell to the floor. As faked heart attacks and pratfalls were a famous part of Foxx’s comedy act, it took a moment for his fellow cast members to realize there was a very real problem. He later died at the hospital, at the age of 68. He was married four times, but had no biological children, though he adopted Debraca Denise Harris during his marriage to her mother, Betty Jean Harris.

LaWanda Page (d. 2002)

Before she was going toe-to-toe with Fred Sanford as Aunt Esther, LaWanda Page actually started her career as a fire dancer. Yes, you read that right — Page’s nightclub act, which she began performing at age 15, involved fire-eating and walking over flames. Eventually, she decided to try comedy instead (according to some accounts, her bosses at a nightclub demanded it), and by the mid-’60s, she was known as “The Queen of Comedy” and had released several raunchy comedy albums.

Page was on the verge of dropping out of show business when childhood friend Foxx brought her into the Sanford and Son cast. Producers were hesitant to work with Page, as she didn’t have much acting experience, but Foxx staunchly defended her, and she quickly became one of the show’s most beloved characters. Page continued playing Aunt Esther on the 1977 spin-off The Sanford Arms (which featured neither Foxx nor Wilson), as well as Foxx’s Sanford.

Page continued to perform stand-up comedy during her time on Sanford and Son and after, and appeared in everything from The Love Boat to a role on the 1990s sitcom Martin. She also performed a monologue on RuPaul’s first album, and spent the late ’90s as a pitchwoman for Church’s Chicken.

Page had a son who died in infancy, and a daughter. She married three times before the age of 40; each marriage ended with her husband’s death. After her third husband died, Page vowed to never marry again. She died from a heart attack in 2002, at the age of 81.

Whitman Mayo (d. 2001)

Korean War veteran Mayo held many jobs before he landed the role of Grady Wilson, Fred’s wacky best friend — he spent his pre-Sanford years as a waiter, a vineyard worker, and a counselor for teenage boys who’d run into trouble with the law. In his free time, he acted, and after producer Norman Lear caught a New York City theater performance Mayo appeared in, he was offered a part in Sanford. Interestingly, Grady is portrayed as an elderly man on the show, but Mayo was only in his early 40s when the show first aired.

Grady Wilson first appeared on the show in 1973, and was promoted to main character during the season when Foxx walked off set. The character was so popular, he was given his own spin-off show, Grady, for the 1975-6 season. However, it failed to get any traction with viewers and he returned to the show.

Mayo reprised the role in The Sanford Arms and Sanford, and appeared in guest roles on TV and in small film roles throughout the rest of his life — his most notable late-period role was as The Old Man in 1991’s Boyz n the Hood. He died following a heart attack in 2001. He married three times and had three children, one of whom, Rahn Mayo, spent eight years as a member of the Georgia House of Representatives.