My little sister and I used to rush home from school to catch Punky Brewster, and Mike was the teacher I wished I had. Watched it on our basement TV in Scarborough, rewound the theme song more times than I can count. That show got me through a rough year at ten years old.
Their story
Thomas Kent "T.K." Carter was an American actor and comedian whose career ran for almost five decades, from a 1976 debut on NBC's Police Woman to recurring roles on Dave and The Company You Keep in 2023. Horror fans remember him as Nauls, the roller-skating cook of the Antarctic research…
Thomas Kent "T.K." Carter was an American actor and comedian whose career ran for almost five decades, from a 1976 debut on NBC's Police Woman to recurring roles on Dave and The Company You Keep in 2023. Horror fans remember him as Nauls, the roller-skating cook of the Antarctic research station in John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). Television audiences of the 1980s knew him as Mike Fulton, the warm schoolteacher on Punky Brewster, and as Mylo Williams on Good Morning, Miss Bliss. Critics remembered him most for his raw, gentle turn as Gary McCullough in the HBO miniseries The Corner (2000).
Carter was born in New York City on December 18, 1956, and grew up in the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. He began working as a teenager and made his screen debut in an episode of Police Woman. Small parts followed on Good Times, The Waltons and The Jeffersons, and in films such as Corvette Summer and Youngblood in 1978.
His film work leaned toward comedy. He played the street-smart Chester in Seems Like Old Times (1980), the karaoke-singing Iceman in Ski Patrol (1990) and Diavolo Washington in Doctor Detroit (1983). He could also play nervous men under pressure, as Cribbs, the doomed National Guardsman in Walter Hill's Southern Comfort (1981), and as Nauls in The Thing, a role that became his best-known part and a fixture of horror fan culture. He appeared in Andrei Konchalovsky's Runaway Train (1985), voiced Monstar Nawt in Space Jam (1996), played Bill Cosby in Mario Van Peebles's Baadasssss! (2003) and turned up in Tony Scott's Domino (2005).
Carter's first starring role on television was as Shabu, a genie, on the ABC sitcom Just Our Luck in 1983. He then spent two seasons on Punky Brewster (1985 to 1986), played Mylo on Good Morning, Miss Bliss (1988), the series that became Saved by the Bell, and was a regular as Clarence Hull on The Sinbad Show (1993). He was T-Bone on The Steve Harvey Show and made guest appearances on 227, Family Matters, A Different World, Moesha, The Nanny, NYPD Blue, Everybody Hates Chris and How to Get Away with Murder. As a voice actor he played Anthony Julian on Jem and Rocksteady in an episode of The Transformers.
In The Corner, the HBO miniseries adapted from David Simon and Edward Burns's book about a Baltimore family destroyed by drugs, Carter played Gary McCullough, a gentle, once-successful man lost to addiction. The Boston Globe wrote that his performance "perfectly captures the gentleness and passivity that can be addiction's easiest conquest." In a 2025 interview on Live From The Green Room, Carter said he had struggled even to get an audition for the show until a friend connected him with the right manager.
His late career brought him back to prestige work: Ben Affleck's The Way Back (2020), three episodes of The Company You Keep and five episodes of the FX comedy Dave, both in 2023.
Carter was married to Sandra Collier for about 15 years. Reports after his death said she had died of colon cancer not long before, and that he had spoken of losing her in a final interview.
On January 9, 2026, Carter was found dead at his home in Duarte, California, after a call for service. He was 69. Police said no foul play was suspected, and a cause of death was not made public. His publicist, Tony Freeman, called him "a consummate professional and a genuine soul whose talent transcended genres," adding that "his legacy will continue to inspire generations of artists and fans alike." Tributes poured in from fans of The Thing, Punky Brewster, Good Times and The Corner.
Biography adapted from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T._K._Carter.
In their own words
“T.K. Carter was a consummate professional and a genuine soul whose talent transcended genres. He brought laughter, truth and humanity to every role he touched. His legacy will continue to inspire generations of artists and fans alike.”
Publicist Tony Freeman, statement to The Hollywood Reporter, January 2026
“perfectly captures the gentleness and passivity that can be addiction's easiest conquest”
Matthew Gilbert, The Boston Globe, April 14, 2000, on Carter's performance in The Corner
Photos
1T.K. Carter in 1983
Jan 1983 · by People Forever
same, Mike Fulton felt like the calm one in the room