<Tr> <Th> Occupation </Th> <Td> Actor </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Years active </Th> <Td> 1968--1991 </Td> </Tr> <P> Theodore Ross Roberts (June 30, 1934--September 3, 2002), known as Ted Ross, was an American actor who was probably best known for his role as the Lion in The Wiz, an all - African American reinterpretation of The Wizard of Oz . He won a Tony Award for the original 1975 Broadway production, and went on to recreate the role in the 1978 film version which also starred Diana Ross, Michael Jackson and Nipsey Russell . Ross went on to appear in films including the role of Bitterman in the classic Arthur, and on the television sitcoms The Jeffersons, Benson, The Cosby Show, and its spin - off A Different World . His final role was in the 1991 movie The Fisher King . </P> <P> Ross was born in Zanesville, Ohio, but his mother, Elizabeth Russell, a nightclub singer in the 1920s and 1930s, moved the family to Dayton when young Ross was seven . He loved the clubs on West Fifth Street--Dayton's answer to Harlem in the first half of the 20th century . While in junior high, Ross, who was big for his age, would dress up and strut into the Owl Club and The Palace Theater's Midnight Rambles to see great acts such as Duke Ellington . </P>

Who played the cowardly lion in the wiz