Friday star Tommy “Tiny” Lister has reportedly died at the age of 62.
TMZ reported Thursday evening that law enforcement authorities were called to Lister’s home in Marina Del Rey, California just before 3 p.m. and an unconscious male was found in the apartment. Sources told the outlet that Lister was pronounced dead at the scene.
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No cause of death has been given for the veteran actor who appeared in 1995’s Friday as the imposing neighborhood bully Deebo. He reprised the iconic role in the 2000 sequel, Friday Next.
His other notable roles included Zeus in the 1989 movie No Holds Barred starring former professional wrestler Hulk Hogan. This role led to a stint in the former WWF where he was billed as “Zeus: The Human Wrecking Machine, a heel who no-sold offenses and tangled with the biggest stars at the time such as Macho Man Randy Savage and Million Dollar Man Ted DiBiase. He last appeared at the annual Royal Rumble in 1990.
The tributes immediately began to pour in for Tommy Lister — most notably from Lister’s Friday co-star, Ice Cube.
“RIP Tiny “Deebo” Lister. America’s favorite bully was a born entertainer who would pop into character at the drop of a hat terrifying people on and off camera. Followed by a big smile and laugh. Thank you for being a good dude at heart. I miss you already,” he tweeted Thursday night.
Tommy Lister was born on June 24, 1958, in Compton, California and was blind in his right eye due to a detached and deformed retina. However, he did not allow that disability to define his life and came to think of it as a blessing.
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He once cursed God but became a born again Christian in the late 1990s because of his blindness.
“I started doing these movies and God said, ‘You thought it was a curse. It was a blessing,’” he once said, according to Black Doctor Org. “[My eye] became my trademark in Hollywood.”
He credited God for allowing “light” to come into his life.
“God will turn something negative into something positive,” said Lister. “God was looking for a bigger playing field for me to tell everybody how gangster he is. That’s all he was doing. He was setting me up.”
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