Lumbly's first career was as a journalist in Minnesota. While on assignment for a story about a workshop theatre, he was cast as an actor. He stayed with the improvisational company for two years and later moved to San Francisco where he discovered a newspaper ad seeking “two black actors for South African political plays.” He went to the audition and landed one of the parts (along with then-unknown Danny Glover). Lumbly and Glover toured in productions of Athol Fugard's Sizwe Bansi is Dead and The Island.[5][6]
Career
Lumbly's first major role was Detective Marcus Petrie on the television series Cagney & Lacey (1982–1988), where his character was paired with Detective Victor Isbecki (Martin Kove). In 1985, he appeared as Theseus in The Gospel At Colonus, an African-American musical iteration of the Oedipus legend on PBS's Great Performances series.
In 1987, he garnered positive reviews for his portrayal of Black Panther Party co-founder Bobby Seale in the HBO television film Conspiracy: The Trial of the Chicago 8.[7] From 1989 to 1990, he portrayed ongoing character Earl Williams (named for the prisoner in Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur's story The Front Page), a teacher falsely accused of the rape/murder of a female student, in the series L.A. Law.[8]
In 2000, Lumbly portrayed activist and Congressman Ron Dellums in the Disney Channel original film The Color of Friendship.[11] Although the film was focused on Dellums's daughter's friendship with a white South African girl, the film also discussed Dellums's role in ending apartheid in South Africa.
Lumbly has been married twice and has one son. He was married to actress Vonetta McGee from 1987 until her death in 2010.[4] Together they had one son, born in 1988. Lumbly married author Deborah Santana in 2015 and the couple divorced in 2019.[1]
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