One of Willis's pals during the first season of Diff'rent Strokes was Tiny, played by Brian Salmon. Tiny--along with Vernon, Charles, and Bubba--was one of Willis' friends from Harlem. Tiny appeared twice during season one (in the episodes "The Club Meeting" and "Willis' Birthday") before never being seen or mentioned on Strokes again.

Sadly, the actor who portrayed Tiny, Brian Salmon, died in February 1979 at the age of seventeen a little bit over a month after "The Club Meeting" aired, and more than a month before "Willis' Birthday" would be telecast. What's even more sad is that those two aforementioned episodes of Strokes are his only acting credits, according to his profile on IMdb (the Internet Movie Database).

I've always wondered what the inside story behind Salmon's premature death was. It seems like he had his entire life ahead of him prior to his unexpected passing; I would've enjoyed seeing Salmon appear on later episodes of Strokes. In any case, may he continue to rest in peace.

If any of you know the circumstances behind Brian Salmon's death, feel drop me a line sometime...I'd love to hear from all of you.

Enjoy the remainder of your day, everyone!

They weren't consistent with the character's names. He was credited as Charles in "The Club Meeting". Tony Williams played William.

https://reviewingeverytvshowiown.blogspot.com/2016/07/diffrent-strokes-club-meeting.html

He is to the left of Todd Bridges in this screenshot.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BN2ViNDQxMjAtOWNlZC00OTQ3LWFmNjYtNmI5ZWRiYzUwNTRjXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNTM3MDMyMDQ@._V1_.jpg

He was credited as Tiny in "Willis' Birthday". Tony Williams played Charles.

https://reviewingeverytvshowiown.blogspot.com/2016/08/diffrent-strokes-willis-sic-birthday.html

The U.S. Social Security Death Index (https://www.familytreenow.com/records/death/salmon/brian) lists a Bryan Salmon with an address of Palmdale, CA 93550. I don't know if that's where he resided or died. The date of birth and death match his IMDb page. According to his IMDb profile, he was born in Canada.

Maybe TVFactFan or someone with a newspapers.com account can search for his name after February 21, 1979. If there's no mention of it there, maybe someone can ask Todd Bridges. He could have been a real-life friend of Todd or one of the other guest stars. I guess they weren't aware of his death at the time of his second episode. I don't think they did an in memoriam section in the credits.

Brian Salmon looked much younger than 17 in the episodes, so I'm not 100% sure the information is accurate. Maybe they mixed up the names. Todd Bridges and Pop Attmore were 13 in his first appearance. Was he four years older than Todd and Pop? It's hard to believe he was 17 in 1979.