Officials initially claimed that the actor’s 8-year-old daughter was in the ocean with him moments before he drowned.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor perhaps best known for starring in the TV sitcom "The Cosby Show" as son Theodore "Theo" Huxtable, has died at 54. Warner drowned off the coast of Costa Rica on Sunday, Costa Rican National Police told ABC News. Warner's official cause of death was asphyxia, police said.

Fellow actors and producers of Fox's The Resident paid tribute to series co-star Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who died of an accidental drowning at age 54.

Malcolm-Jamal Warner, the actor, who has died aged 54, was cast as Theo Huxtable in the sitcom The Cosby Show at the age of 13, and over the course of some 200 episodes became one of US television’s best-known teenagers.

Actor Jaleel White says he always looked up to the late Malcolm-Jamal Warner, who died Sunday at 54: 'At a loss for words.'