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Cosby Show star rings up NCIS role after Trader Joe's viral photo

Cha-ching! Actor Geoffrey Owens recently quit his cashiering job after a photo of him at work went viral.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
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Going viral for working as a cashier at Trader Joe's seems to have reignited interest in actor Geoffrey Owens, best known for playing Sondra Huxtable's husband Elvin Tibideaux on 1980s hit The Cosby Show. Christopher Silber, executive producer of NCIS: New Orleans, tweeted on Tuesday that Owens would be guest-starring on the CBS drama. (CBS is the parent company of CNET.)

"So excited he'll be joining our extended family," Silber wrote. "Total class act!"

Owens will play Commander Adams, an old friend consulted by Agent Dwayne "King" Pride (Scott Bakula), in an episode airing in late October, Deadline reports.

In late August, a photo of Owens working as a cashier at a New Jersey Trader Joe's went viral, and many criticized the photographer and the media outlets that published it for shaming Owens and his cashiering job.

In an interview Sept. 4 on Good Morning America, Owens said he has since quit the position, which he took for its flexibility so he could continue to pursue acting. He also said he wouldn't feel comfortable accepting an acting job offered merely because of this sudden fame, but he would be OK with it earning him an audition.

Owens was also asked via tweet to take a recurring role on Tyler Perry's OWN drama, The Haves and The Have Nots. USA Today reports that Owens will appear in 10 episodes.