Best known for playing sarcastic, dry-witted, but ultimately lovable character Benson Du Bois in the 1977 series Soap, which was then spun off in 1979, Guillaume was a highly decorated actor.
The Benson actors wife Donna Brown Guillaume told the Associated Press he died at their LA home of complications due to prostate cancer.
Guillaume won Emmys for both Soap and Benson.
He was also known as the the voice of Rafiki in The Lion King, for which he also won a Grammy for a spoken word recording.
Guillaume has one son and three daughters with wife Donna, and our thoughts are with them during this difficult time.