Early life

Cobbs was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to a mother who was a domestic worker and a father who worked in construction.

Career

As an amateur actor in the city's Karamu House Theater, Cobbs starred in the Ossie Davis play Purlie Victorious. Cobbs served in the United States Air Force as a radar technician for eight years; he also worked in office products at IBM and sold cars in Cleveland. In 1970, at the age of 36, he left for New York to seek work as an actor. There he turned down a job in the NBC sales department in order to have time for auditions. He supported himself by driving a cab, repairing office equipment, selling toys, and performing odd jobs. His first professional acting role was in Ride a Black Horse at the Negro Ensemble Company. From there he appeared in small theater productions, street theater, regional theater, and at the Eugene O'Neill Theatre.

Cobbs was in Vegetable Soup (1976), a New York public television educational series, and he made his feature film debut in The Taking of Pelham One Two Three in 1974. Cobbs has an extensive film career and has appeared and been a regular on many television programs, including The Michael Richards Show, The Outer Limits, I'll Fly Away, Yes, Dear, The Sopranos, Six Feet Under, The Others, JAG, The Drew Carey Show, October Road, One Tree Hill, Star Trek: Enterprise (as Dr. Emory Erickson, inventor of the Transporter) and many more. He had a recurring role as George, a blind grief-support-group member, in the TV series, Go On, which premiered in 2012.

In 2006, Cobbs played a supporting role in Night at the Museum as Reginald, a security guard on the verge of retirement. The character also served as an antagonist to the story. He played basketball coach and retired basketball player Arthur Chaney in Disney's Air Bud and Medgar Evers' older brother Charles Evers in Rob Reiner's Ghosts of Mississippi. He had a role in the Coen Brothers' The Hudsucker Proxy and played fictional jazz pianist Del Paxton in Tom Hanks' That Thing You Do. In 2013, Cobbs costarred in Oz the Great and Powerful, and in late 2014 reprised his role of Reginald in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. He recorded a public service announcement for Deejay Ra's Hip-Hop Literacy2 campaign, encouraging reading of Ice-T's autobiography.

Filmography

Film

• The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
• Greased Lightning (1977)
• A Hero Ain't Nothin' but a Sandwich (1978)
• Trading Places (1983)
• Silkwood (1983)
• The Brother from Another Planet (1984)
• The Cotton Club (1984)
• Compromising Positions (1985)
• The Color of Money (1986)
• Five Corners (1987)
• Suspect (1987)
• Dominick and Eugene (1988)
• Bird (1988)
• The January Man (1989)
• Decoration Day (1990)
• New Jack City (1991)
• Carolina Skeletons (1991)
• The Hard Way (1991)
• The People Under the Stairs (1991)
• Roadside Prophets (1992)
• The Bodyguard - Bill Devaney (1992)
• Demolition Man - Zachery Lamb (Aged) (1993)
• The Hudsucker Proxy (1994)
• Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead (1995)
• Fluke (1995)
• Man with a Gun (1995)
• Ed (1996)
• First Kid - Speet (1996)
• That Thing You Do! (1996)
• Ghosts of Mississippi (1996)
• Air Bud - Coach Arthur Chaney (1997)
• Always Outnumbered (1998)
• Paulie (1998)
• Hope Floats (1998)
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer (1998)
• The Wild Thornberrys (1998)
• Random Hearts (1999)
• The Others (2000) Series regular as Elmer Greentree
• For All Time (2000)
• Rugrats (2001)
• Sunshine State (2002)
• Enough (2002)
• A Mighty Wind (2003)
• Lost (2004)
• Duck (2005)
• The Derby Stallion - Houston Jones (2005)
• Hard Luck (2006)
• Night at the Museum - Reginald (2006)
• The Ultimate Gift (2007)
• Three Days to Vegas (2007)
• The Morgue (2008)
• Black Water Transit (2009)
• Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - Reginald (scene deleted) (2009)
• My Son, My Son, What Have Ye Done (2010)
• No Limit Kids: Much Ado About Middle School (2010)
• Get Low - Charlie Jackson (2010)
• The Search for Santa Paws - Mr. Stewart (2010)
• The Arcadian (2010)
• The Muppets - Grandfather (2011)
• Lukewarm (2012)
• Oz the Great and Powerful - Master Tinker (2013)
• The Ultimate Life (2013)
• Dear Secret Santa - Ted (2013)
• Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb - Reginald (2014)
• Of Mind and Music - Stompleg (2015)

Television

• Sesame Street - episode - 17.30 - Lee (1985)
• Kate & Allie - multiple episodes - Sam Butcher (1986)
• I'll Fly Away - regular - Lewis Coleman (1991-93)
• Coach - episode - Why So Happy, Hayden? - George (1993)
• NYPD Blue - episode - The Nutty Confessor - Norval Stevens (1996)
• The Outer Limits - episode - The Camp - second Elder (1997)
• The Wayans Bros. (1997)
• Walker, Texas Ranger - episode - Full Contact - Gino Costa (1997)
• The Sopranos - episode - Do Not Resuscitate - Reverend James, Sr. (2000)
• JAG - episode - Answered Prayers - Chaplain Matthew Turner (2001)
• Six Feet Under, Season 1 - episode 6 (2001)
• JAG - episode - Port Chicago - Chaplain Matthew Turner (2002)
• JAG - episode - Posse Comitatus - Chaplain Matthew Turner (2003)
• The West Wing - episode - Enemies Foreign and Domestic - Alan Tatum (2002)
• JAG - episode - A Merry Little Christmas - Chaplain Matthew Turner (2003)
• Star Trek: Enterprise - episode - Daedalus - Dr. Emory Erickson (2005)
• The Glades - episode - Honey - Gregory Richmond (2010)
• Harry's Law - episode - American Dreams (2011)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]