Richard Lawson survived a plane crash, married into one of music’s most famous families, and still landed a lead role on a hit Netflix series in their late seventies. He has done all three, building a career that stretches from blaxploitation cinema in the 1970s to Tyler Perry’s “Beauty in Black” today. His story includes genre classics, daytime soap fame, a painful public divorce, and a decades-long side career mentoring young actors.
Quick Facts
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Real Name | Rickey Lee Lawson |
| Also Known As | Richard Lawson, Rick Lawson |
| Date of Birth | March 7, 1947 |
| Age | 79 (as of 2026) |
| Birthplace | Loma Linda, California, U.S. |
| Nationality | American |
| Ethnicity | African American |
| Height | 6 feet 1 inch (185 cm) |
| Occupation | Actor, director, acting coach, empowerment leader |
| Years Active | 1969 to present |
| Spouse(s) | Denise Gordy (m. 1978, div. 1989); Tina Knowles (m. 2015, div. 2024) |
| Children | Bianca Lawson, Richard Lee “Ricky” Lawson Jr. |
| Net Worth | Estimated $1 million |
| @mrrichardlawson |
Biography
Lawson was born Rickey Lee Lawson on March 7, 1947, in Loma Linda, California, and is African American. Standing 6 feet 1 inch tall, he graduated from Hayward High School in 1965 and spent a year and a half at Riverside City College before dropping out and being drafted into the U.S. Army three months later.
He served 21 months in Vietnam as a combat medic and was wounded in action, an experience that earned him a Purple Heart. After returning from Vietnam, he enrolled at Chabot Junior College in Hayward and joined the debate team, intending to pursue law, but his strong, resonant voice convinced him to become an actor instead.
Career
Lawson’s first professional job came not on screen but on stage, in the national touring company of “No Place to Be Somebody” alongside Ben Vereen and Philip Michael Thomas. His screen debut followed in 1971 with an uncredited role in Clint Eastwood’s “Dirty Harry,” and he built momentum through the decade with roles in “Scream Blacula Scream” and “The Main Event” opposite Barbra Streisand and Ryan O’Neal.
His most recognizable film role arrived in 1982, when he played Ryan in Steven Spielberg’s “Poltergeist.” The following year, he starred as Dr. Ben Taylor in the NBC science fiction miniseries “V,” and in 1984, he played Officer Ed Price in the cult favorite “Streets of Fire.” These roles cemented him as a dependable presence in genre film during the 1980s.
Television gave Lawson some of his longest-running roles. He joined the primetime soap “Dynasty” as Nick Kimball from 1986 to 1987, played Detective Nathaniel Hawthorne on “The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd” from 1989 to 1991, and created the part of Lucas Barnes on “All My Children” from 1992 to 1994, a role that earned him a 1992 NAACP Image Award. He also made guest appearances on shows including “The Cosby Show,” “Moesha,” “NYPD Blue,” “Judging Amy,” and three episodes of “Grey’s Anatomy” as Bill Pierce.
Between 1983 and 1994, Lawson also helped run the drug education, training, treatment, and aftercare program for the National Basketball Association and the National Basketball Players Association. He began studying under acting teacher Milton Katselas in 1976 and started teaching Katselas’s classes himself in 1980, serving as a master scene study teacher and director at the Beverly Hills Playhouse for more than 30 years before founding his own school, Richard Lawson Studios, in 2005.
More recently, Lawson has found a new audience through Tyler Perry’s Netflix series “Beauty in Black,” now in its second season, where he plays series regular Norman Bellarie, the scheming brother of family patriarch Horace and co-founder of the Bellarie family’s hair-care empire. He also found success through “Divorce in the Black,” which reached number one globally on Amazon Prime. He also joined the BET+ drama “The Black Hamptons” for its second season in 2023 as family patriarch Moses Britton, appeared in “The Ms. Pat Show” on BET+, starred in Bounce TV’s “Saints and Sinners” beginning in 2016, and played Al Sharpton in the 2025 film “Aftershock: The Nicole P Bell Story.” In 2024, he released the book “The Artist’s Roadmap: Navigating Your Career in Show Business,” drawing on his decades in the industry to guide newer performers.
Theater and Directing
Lawson’s roots in performance run deepest on stage. He won L.A. Drama Critics Awards for his work in “Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” at the Los Angeles Theater Center and “Streamers” at the Westwood Playhouse, and his stage credits also include “Fool for Love” at LATC alongside Pam Grier, “Checkmates” at the Westwood Playhouse, the American premiere of “Hapgood” at the Doolittle Theater, “The Mighty Gents,” “The Talented Tenth,” two separate productions of “Othello,” and “The Exonerated” at the Actors Gang Theater.
He has also directed extensively for the stage, with credits including “No Place to Be Somebody,” “Othello,” “Death of a Salesman,” “Chicago,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” and “The Fisher King,” among others. In 2022, he stepped behind the camera to direct “Black Terror,” a film adaptation of Richard Wesley’s 1971 play of the same name, produced through Lawson’s WACO Theater Center in partnership with Newark Symphony Hall and premiered at the Sundance Film Festival.
Personal Life
Lawson survived one of the more harrowing moments of his life on March 22, 1992, when USAir Flight 405 crashed into Long Island Sound shortly after taking off from LaGuardia Airport en route to Cleveland. Twenty-seven people died in the crash, and Lawson was one of 24 survivors, an experience he has said inspired an as-yet unpublished novel he is now adapting into a screenplay.
His first marriage was to actress and singer Denise Gordy, niece of Motown founder Berry Gordy, on December 31, 1978. The couple had a daughter, actress Bianca Lawson, born in 1979, before divorcing in 1989. Bianca went on to appear in “Pretty Little Liars” and “Queen Sugar,” following in her father’s footsteps into the industry. In a neat bit of overlap, Lawson played Bianca’s father on screen in the 1993 series “Saved by the Bell: The New Class,” the same role he holds in real life. Lawson also has a son, Richard Lee “Ricky” Lawson Jr., born in 1992, who built his own career as a Grammy-nominated songwriter, co-writing Beyoncé’s “Heated” and “Summer Renaissance” from her 2022 album “Renaissance” and contributing to her 2024 album “Cowboy Carter.”
Lawson and Tina Knowles had been friends for more than three decades, since Knowles was close friends with Lawson’s late sister, before they began dating in the summer of 2013. Before proposing, Lawson called Beyoncé and Solange to ask for their approval, and Knowles has said that her granddaughter, Blue Ivy, was the one who first raised the idea of marriage during a family trip. The couple married on April 12, 2015, on a yacht in Newport Beach, California, with Blue Ivy serving as flower girl and guests including Kelly Rowland, Michelle Williams, and Samuel L. Jackson, making Lawson Knowles’s husband and folding him into the wider Knowles family.
In 2017, Lawson and Knowles co-founded the WACO Theater Center, short for “Where Art Can Occur,” a Los Angeles-based nonprofit dedicated to supporting artists and young people from the African diaspora. Lawson serves as its president, Knowles as vice president, and both hold the title of co-artistic director. The couple had no children together; Lawson’s two children were from his first marriage, and Knowles’s daughters, Beyoncé and Solange, were from her marriage to Mathew Knowles. Knowles filed for divorce in July 2023, citing irreconcilable differences and asking that her name be restored to Celestine Knowles. The two reached a settlement in August 2024, in which Knowles agreed to pay Lawson $300,000 along with their 2021 Cadillac Escalade. There are no public reports of Lawson remarrying since the divorce.
Net Worth
As of 2026, Richard Lawson’s net worth is estimated at around $1 million, a figure that Celebrity Net Worth and several other sources consistently cite. That number comes from steady, long-term earnings rather than a single blockbuster payday, built through more than five decades of film, television, and stage work.
His income streams go well beyond acting fees. Richard Lawson Studios generates revenue through the classes and workshops he runs for aspiring performers, and his years administering the NBA and NBPA’s drug education program added a separate income stream outside entertainment entirely. His recent recurring role on “Beauty in Black” and the release of “The Artist’s Roadmap” suggest his earnings could see a modest bump in the years ahead, though nothing on the scale of his former stepdaughter Beyoncé’s fortune.
Filmography
Film
| Year | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1971 | Dirty Harry | Homosexual (uncredited) |
| 1973 | Scream Blacula Scream | Willis Daniels |
| 1974 | Black Fist (Bogard) | Lt. Valentine |
| 1979 | The Main Event | Hector Mantilla |
| 1982 | Poltergeist | Ryan |
| 1984 | Streets of Fire | Officer Ed Price |
| 1985 | Stick | Cornell |
| 1997 | Wag the Dog | CIA Agent |
| 1998 | How Stella Got Her Groove Back | Jack |
| 2005 | Guess Who | Marcus |
| 2010 | For Colored Girls | Frank |
| 2017 | Searching for Neverland | Joe Jackson |
| 2019 | Always a Bridesmaid | Carlton Blakeston Sr. |
| 2022 | Black Terror | Director |
| 2024 | Divorce in the Black | Clarence |
| 2025 | Aftershock: The Nicole P Bell Story | Al Sharpton |
Television
| Years | Title | Role |
|---|---|---|
| 1986–1987 | Dynasty | Nick Kimball |
| 1988–1991 | The Days and Nights of Molly Dodd | Det. Nathaniel Hawthorne |
| 1992–1994 | All My Children | Lucas Barnes |
| 2013–2016 | Real Husbands of Hollywood | Detective Smith |
| 2015 | Being Mary Jane | Charles |
| 2016 | Saints and Sinners | Pastor Evan Johnson |
| 2017–2021 | Grey’s Anatomy | Bill Pierce |
| 2018 | In Contempt | Earl Sullivan |
| 2022 | The Ms. Pat Show | Major |
| 2023 | The Black Hamptons | Moses Britton |
| 2024–2025 | Beauty in Black | Norman Bellarie |
FAQ
How is Richard Lawson related to Beyoncé? Lawson is Beyoncé’s former stepfather. He married her mother, Tina Knowles, in April 2015, and the two divorced in 2024. There is no blood relation between Lawson and Beyoncé; the connection came entirely through his marriage to her mother.
Is Richard Lawson related to Marvin Gaye? Not directly. The connection people usually mean runs through his first wife, Denise Gordy. Her son, Marvin Gaye III, was born before her marriage to Lawson and is the biological child of Gordy and singer Marvin Gaye, who was later adopted by Gordy’s aunt, Anna Gordy Gaye. That makes Marvin Gaye III a half-sibling to Lawson’s daughter Bianca, but Lawson himself has no blood tie to Marvin Gaye.
What happened with Tina Knowles and Richard Lawson? Knowles filed for divorce from Lawson in July 2023 after eight years of marriage, citing irreconcilable differences. The two reached a settlement in August 2024, with Knowles agreeing to pay Lawson $300,000 along with their 2021 Cadillac Escalade.
What is Richard Lawson most known for? Lawson is best known for playing Ryan in the 1982 horror classic “Poltergeist” and for his recurring role as Nick Kimball on “Dynasty.” He has also drawn wide attention as Beyoncé and Solange’s former stepfather and, more recently, for his role as Norman Bellarie in Tyler Perry’s “Beauty in Black.”
Is Richard Lawson married now? No. Lawson’s second marriage, to Tina Knowles, ended in a 2024 divorce settlement, and there are no public reports of him remarrying since.
