CVK
Actor Franklin Cover, probably best known as the white husband of the interracial couple in the TV series The Jeffersons, passed away of pneumonia last weekend. From CBC Arts:

Cover gained fame for his role as Tom Willis, who was in an interracial marriage with a black woman, living next door to George and Louise Jefferson in a “deluxe apartment in the sky,” as the show’s song says.

The actor played the comic foil to Sherman Hemsley’s opinionated black businessman, who kept calling Cover’s character a “honky” and a zebra because of his interracial marriage. The show ran from 1975 to 1985.

It’s believed Tom and Helen Willis were the first interracial couple to be featured on a prime-time series. Roxie Roker, who played Helen Willis, died in 1995.