Robert Banks, longtime film, TV actor dies
After spending most of his life in Cleveland, Ohio, Robert Banks decided he wanted to pursue a career that took him from his native state to Atlanta: acting.
He had done voice-over work for Red Lobster, Ohio Bell and television ads and had enjoyed it, said his son Daniel Banks, “but I think he just wanted a change of pace. He wanted to do something fun.”
He arrived in Atlanta in 1988, and he found ample work. Banks appeared in several Georgia-based television shows including “Atlanta,” “The Vampire Diaries,” “In the Heat of the Night” and “I’ll Fly Away,” as well as working in movies with Tyler Perry, Denzel Washington and Ron Howard.
One movie he particularly enjoyed acting in was “Daddy’s Little Girls,” his son says. He was also in “Antwone Fisher.”
The son of Joseph Addison Banks and Ida Bell Stokes Banks, Robert Addison Banks was born on Sept. 28, 1936, in Cleveland. He died on Oct. 6 at the Central Alabama VA Medical Center in Tuskegee, Alabama.
His parents had moved to Ohio from Alabama and Georgia “for more opportunities,” Daniel Banks says, and they reared their two sons there. After graduating from Empire High School in Cleveland, Robert Banks was drafted into the U.S. Army. He spent more than 20 years in active service and later joined the reserves.
In Cleveland, after leaving full-time military service, he worked for the defense contractor Gould in electronics. When he moved to Atlanta, his son said, he worked part-time in property management at Georgia State while acting and doing voice-over work.
Banks married his third wife, Doris Derby, in 1995. A civil right photographer and activist, she was director of Georgia State University’s Office of African American Student Services and Programs and adjunct associate professor of anthropology. Both Banks and Derby were salsa enthusiasts. They were also involved with the DJB Foundation, which provided college students with scholarship opportunities.
Daniel Banks says both his stepmother and his father survived bouts with cancer. After Derby’s death in 2022, Banks started having issues with his heart, his son said. He moved into a VA hospital to be close to his daughter.
In addition to his son, Robert Banks is survived by daughter Lisa Sellers of Opelika, Alabama. There are two grandchildren and two great grandchildren. An 11 a.m. funeral is scheduled for Saturday, October 18, at Providence Missionary Baptist Church, 2295 Benjamin E. Mays Drive in Atlanta.
