'Jeffersons' character Franklin Cover dies

[hoosier]

Franklin Cover, who became a familiar face as George and Louise Jefferson's white neighbor in the long-running TV sitcom "The Jeffersons," has died, his publicist said Thursday. He was 77.
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But Cover was best known for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, in "The Jeffersons."

He and his wife lived in the same "deluxe apartment building" that Sherman Hemsley moved his family to after making money in the dry-cleaning business. There, Cover often played a comic foil to Hemsley's blustering, opinionated black businessman. The show ran from 1975 to 1985.