Mike Evans- -Lionel Jefferson- -All in Family Star dies

Before he was 30, Mike Evans acted in two classic 1970s sitcoms and helped create a third.

Evans, who played Lionel, Archie Bunker's and George Jefferson's unflappable foil in All in the Family and The Jeffersons and went on to cocreate Good Times, has died.

Evans succumbed to throat cancer last week in Twentynine Palms, California, his family told the Los Angeles Times. He was 57.

Evans was still a Los Angeles City College student when the young actor won a recurring role on All in the Family as Lionel Jefferson, the (black) next-door neighbor of the (white) bigot Bunker.

Evans appeared on more than two dozen episodes of the top-rated sitcom from 1971 to 1975, his character almost always managing to vex Bunker more with his point of view than with the color of his skin.

On The Jeffersons, an All in the Family spinoff that debuted in 1975, Evans was initially a series regular, Lionel's even-keeled nature required to contrast with the volcanic nature of his "honky"-spouting father, George Jefferson.