Bill Cosby

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• Born: 12 July 1937
• Birthplace: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Best Known As: Star of the hit 1980s sitcom The Cosby Show

Name at birth: William Henry Cosby, Jr.

Bill Cosby began his career as a stand-up comic and ended up as one of America's most beloved television stars. Bill Cosby begand doing stand-up in the early 1960s while attending Temple University, and his comedy career was kick-started by a 1963 appearance on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show. His first comedy album was Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow... Right! in 1964, and Cosby won multiple Grammy Awards for comedy recordings throughout the 1960s. He was particularly known for routines about childhood friends like Fat Albert and Old Weird Harold (both of whom later appeared in the 1970s cartoon series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids). Bill Cosby starred with Robert Culp in the spoofy TV series I Spy from 1965-68, winning three Emmy Awards and becoming one of the few African-American stars on primetime TV. Cosby appeared in many other TV shows (including the PBS educational show The Electric Company) and in movies including Uptown Saturday Night (1974, with Sidney Poitier) and Mother, Juggs and Speed (1976, with Raquel Welch). From 1984-92, Bill Cosby dominated primetime television with The Cosby Show, a family comedy in which he and Phylicia Rashad starred as Cliff and Claire Huxtable. The show was a huge hit and, along with the 1986 book Fatherhood, re-established Bill Cosby as a leading comedian. From 1996-2000 he starred in a similar sitcom, Cosby, again with Rashad playing his wife. He is the author of many books, including the 1986 bestseller Fatherhood. He was given Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.

Bill Cosby married the former Camille Hanks on 25 January 1964. They had four daughters and a son together: Erika (born 1965), Erinn (b. 1966), Ennis (b. 1969), Ensa (b. 1973), and Evin (b. 1976). Their son Ennis Cosby was shot to death in January 1997 in a botched robbery after he stopped to change a tire just off a Los Angeles freeway. A Ukrainian immigrant named Mikhail Markhasev was convicted of the crime... Bill Cosby has a bachelor's degree from Temple University (1971), and a master's degree (1972) and Ed.D. (1976) from the University of Massachusetts... In 1997 a woman named Autumn Jackson was arrested after trying to extort $40 million from Bill Cosby, claiming to be his illegitimate daughter. Cosby admitted to an affair with Jackson's mother but denied fathering Jackson. She was convicted of extortion and sentenced to 26 months in jail... Bill Cosby's 1987 movie Leonard, Part 6 is regarded as a famous Hollywood flop... Bill Cosby was a longtime pitchman for Jell-O pudding.

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An entertainer for three decades, William Henry Cosby, Jr. (born 1937) starred in live performances, record albums, books, film, and television. His long-running, hugely popular "The Cosby Show" was in the top of the Nielson television ratings from its debut in 1984.

William Henry Cosby, Junior, was born in Germantown, Pennsylvania, July 12, 1937, to Anna and William Cosby. There were four boys in the family, but one died from rheumatic fever at six years old. Soon after the young boy's death, William Cosby Sr., left his family and joined the Navy. Bill, the oldest son, became the man of the family and helped his mother pay the bills by doing odd jobs such as delivering groceries and shining shoes. He tried to keep up with his school work, but he dropped out of high school to join the Navy in the early 1950s. Cosby's mother had always stressed the importance of education to her children, and so eventually Bill earned his diploma through correspondence school and was accepted at Temple University in Philadelphia on an athletic scholarship.

The athlete at Temple still needed spending money, so he took a job as a bartender in a neighborhood café called The Underground. The bar had a resident comedian who often didn't show up for his act, so Cosby began to fill in, entertaining the crowd with jokes and humorous stories. His reputation as a funny bartender spread throughout the city, and Cosby soon got offers to do stand-up comedy in other clubs. His act was influenced by Mel Brooks, Jonathan Winters, Bob Newhart, and Lenny Bruce. Cosby's biggest chance came when he was asked to perform at the Gaslight Café, a Greenwich Village coffeehouse that regularly featured young performers such as Bob Dylan.

Cosby was soon making people laugh in large, well-known night spots all over the country, and he reached a point where his career showed him more promise than his education. He left Temple in 1962.

Cosby's first electronic medium for his comedy was the long-playing album. "Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow … Right!" (1963), produced by Roy Silver and Allan Sherman, was the comedian's first recording, as well as his first to win a Grammy Award. His second album, "I Started Out As a Child," released in 1964, received another Grammy honor as Best Comedy Album of the Year. All of Cosby's albums earned more than $1 million in sales. His popularity continued and he won consecutive Best Comedy Album awards every year from 1964 to 1969.

Allan Sherman was one of Cosby's biggest fans as well as his producer, and when Sherman filled in for Johnny Carson as guest host of "The Tonight Show" in 1963, he asked Cosby to be his guest. "The Tonight Show" producers were skeptical about having an African American comic on the show, but Sherman was adamant and Cosby was a big hit.

Sheldon Leonard, producer of mid-1960s hits including "The Danny Thomas Show," "The Dick Van Dyke Show," and "The Andy Griffith Show," was watching "The Tonight Show" the night Cosby was on. At the time, he was looking for a male actor to play opposite Robert Culp on a new dramatic series - and when he saw Cosby, he had his man. "I Spy" was an immediate success, and the fact that it was the first prime-time television program to star a black person added to its appeal. In 1967 Cosby won the Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Dramatic Series, and he did likewise in 1968 and 1969. His second prime-time series, "The Bill Cosby Show," began in 1969, just one year after "I Spy" went off the air. Starring Cosby as a high school sports instructor, it was number one in its first season. However, ratings steadily dropped over the next two years, and the show was canceled in the spring of 1971.

The following year marked the beginning of "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" as a regular series on CBS (it aired first in 1971 as a special). The Saturday afternoon cartoon featured a group of kids living and learning together in an urban area much like the impoverished section of Philadelphia where Cosby was reared. Cosby provided the voice for every character and bracketed the animated portion of the show in person to discuss the episode's message. So that his audience would learn good behavior and solid values, Cosby employed a panel of educators to act as advisers. The program won a variety of awards, and audience estimates numbered about six million.

Cosby made two more attempts at prime time with "The New Bill Cosby Show" and "Cos" in 1972 and 1976, respectively; both were unsuccessful variety shows which included dancing, skits, and monologue sessions.

Although Cosby dropped out of prime-time television for some time during the mid-1970s, he was still quite active in comedy, mostly through live performances and comedy albums such as "Why Is There Air?," "Wonderfulness," and "Revenge." The majority of the material for these albums came from Cosby's childhood experiences, such as plotting an escape from a bed he'd been told was surrounded by thousands of poisonous snakes, living through a tonsillectomy at age five, and having everything he ever made in shop class turn into an ashtray.

Cosby earned his undergraduate degree from Temple University in 1971 and in 1977 completed his Ph.D. in education at the University of Massachusetts. Cosby's commitment to education included regular appearances during the 1970s on "The Electric Company," produced by the Children's Television Workshop, which also produced "Sesame Street." He also appeared as the host of the Picturepages segment on "Captain Kangaroo" in the early 1980s.

Hollywood also employed the talent of Cosby, but with indifferent results. His first movie was "Man and Boy," a 1972 western film with Cosby in the lead; panned by critics, it quickly died at the box office. A much later movie (1978) with Richard Pryor, "California Suite," was written by Neil Simon. The film fared relatively well. In between, he made "Hickey and Boggs," "Uptown Saturday Night," "Let's Do It Again," "Mother, Jugs and Speed," "A Piece of the Action," "The Devil and Max Devlin," "Bill Cosby Himself," and "Leonard the Sixth."

By 1984 Cosby had become disillusioned with what he saw on television and came up with his own idea of a sitcom. The networks were skeptical, as his last two attempts at prime time were failures. Only NBC was interested; they ordered six provisional episodes only after seeing a pilot. Cosby gave them a segment featuring himself as Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable discussing sex with his two teenaged daughters. NBC liked it enough to agree to Cosby's major concessions, including complete creative control and a studio in New York. He would cast himself as an obstetriciangynecologist married to an attorney. They would be parents to five children, and their names would be Huxtable (executives wanted him to change it to Brown). They would represent middle-class values and they would just happen to be black. They would not take on traditional television characteristics of blacks, neither Fred Sanford's dialect nor George Jefferson's anger. They would be a happy family dealing with everyday problems and incidents, and it would be called "The Cosby Show."

The first show aired in September 1984, and it was an immediate success. That season "The Cosby Show" finished as the third most watched prime-time television show, according to Nielsen ratings, and it was number one for the next four seasons. The show went into syndication in October 1988, and it sold to the Fox network for $550 million the rights to 182 programs to last for three and a half years.

On Jan. 16, 1997, Cosby's life took a dramatic turn, as headlines nationwide broke the shocking news that his only son had been murdered. Ennis, 27, had stopped to change a flat tire along a Los Angeles freeway when he was allegedly shot to death by an 18-year-old Ukrainian immigrant. Details of the fated night were sketchy at first, and it was not certain that the killer would be found. National tabloid the National Enquirer offered $100,000 for information leading to the arrest of the shooter, which prompted one witness, a friend of defendant Mihkhail Markhasev, to come forward to testify. The District Attorney's office announced in June, 1997, that it would not seek the death penalty for Markhasev.

Two days after the shooting, Cosby gained additional attention when a young woman alleged she was his illegitimate child. Prosecutors later claimed Autumn Jackson, 22, was one of three defendants who schemed to extort $40 million from the comedian. Cosby's lawyers alleged Jackson, along with failed children's television producer Jose Medina and Boris Sabas, tried to trash Cosby's reputation by threatening to sell the story to a supermarket tabloid. Cosby admitted to having had an affair with Jackson's mother, Shawn Upshaw, but has denied being Jackson's father. In July of 1997, Jackson was convicted of extortion.

Cosby and his wife, Camille, have been married since 1964 and have four daughters. Cosby has been his own manager and producer and wrote several books, including the best-selling "Fatherhood," published in 1986. He also became one of the most visible spokespeople in the nation, pitching products for Jell-O, Kodak, Del Monte, the Ford Motor Company and the Coca-Cola Company on television commercials.

"Cosby," which debuted in the fall of 1996 is the latest addition to the Cosby television archive. The CBS show, which also starred Madeline Kahn and Phylicia Rashad, was co-produced by Cosby for Carsey-Werner Productions.

Further Reading

In addition to numerous articles in the popular media, Bill Cosby has been the subject of books by Bill Adler, The Cosby Wit (1986); Ronald L. Smith, Bill Cosby in Words and Pictures (1986) and Cosby (1986); James T. Olsen, Look Back in Laughter (1974); and Caroline Latham, Bill Cosby - For Real (1987). Cosby himself has written Fatherhood (1986), Time Flies (1988), and Love and Marriage (1989). All are anecdotal, humorous, and matter-of-factly make fun of everyday activities.

comedian; actor; writer; television show host

Personal Information

Born William Henry Cosby, Jr., on July 12, 1937, in Germantown, PA; son of William Henry, Sr. (a U.S. Navy mess steward) and Anna (a domestic worker) Cosby; married Camille Hanks, January 25, 1964; children: Erika, Erinn, Ennis (deceased), Ensa, Evin.
Education: Attended Temple University, 1961-62; University of Massachusetts, M.A., 1972, Ed.D., 1977.
Military/Wartime Service: U.S. Navy, 1956-60.
Memberships: United Negro College Fund; NAACP; Operation PUSH; Sickle Cell Foundation; Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation.

Career

Actor, comedian, recording artist, author. Nightclub comedian, 1963-. Television actor, appearing in I Spy, 1965-68, The Bill Cosby Show, 1969-71, The Cosby Show, 1984-92, The Cosby Mysteries, 1994; and Cosby, 1996-; creator of children's animated series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, 1972-79, and The New Fat Albert Show, 1979-84; host of You Bet Your Life, 1992-93. Film appearances include roles in Uptown Saturday Night, 1974; Let's Do It Again, 1975; Mother, Juggs & Speed, 1976; California Suite, 1978; The Devil and Max Devlin, 1981; Leonard Part VI, 1987; and Ghost Dad, 1990. Commercial spokesperson for Jell-O Pudding, Kodak Film, and other products; creator of the Little Bill children's book series and television program, 1997-; Fatherhood animated cartoon series, 2004-.

Life's Work

Bill Cosby, one of television's funniest and most popular comedic actors, has spent his long career making people laugh. Cosby first gained prominence as a comedian in the early 1960s, when he vaulted from telling jokes in Philadelphia night-spots to the top of the nightclub circuit and then to television. Cosby became the first African American to star in a television drama when he appeared on I Spy in 1965. In the 1980s, in the role of Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, he headed television's first educated, middle-class African American family in the wildly successful The Cosby Show. Though best known for his television appearances, Cosby has made more than 20 comedy albums, appeared in films, published a string of humorous books, and pitched products for Jell-O, Kodak, and a variety of other companies.

Cosby's humor springs from life's absurdities. As a young comic, he told long funny stories about his childhood in Philadelphia and his experiences at Temple University. In the 1970s and 1980s, he wove humorous yarns from family events, such as a child's trip to the dentist. In the 1990s, he addressed aging and the consequences of raising wealthy children.

William Henry Cosby, Jr., was born in 1937 in the Germantown district of North Philadelphia. He grew up in the all-African American Richard Allen housing project where his mother, Anna Cosby, struggled to raise him and his younger brothers, Russell and Robert. His father, William Cosby, Sr., served as a mess steward in the U.S. Navy and was away for months at a time. As a child, Cosby loved comedy radio shows. "I always listened for the comedy," he told the Los Angeles Times: "Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen. ...When comedy was on, I was just happy to be alive." By the fifth grade, Cosby was getting up in front of his class and making everybody laugh, including his teacher.

Cosby's high IQ led teachers to place him in a class for gifted students, but outside interests eventually derailed his school career. Between work and playing football, basketball, baseball, and running track, he found little time for schoolwork. When Cosby was told that he would have to repeat the tenth grade at Germantown High, he dropped out. "The truth is," he recalled in the Los Angeles Times, "I'd just grown very tired of myself and thought perhaps there was a career for me in the service. If you stayed in for 20 years, you knew at least you'd get a certain amount of money for the rest of your life." Cosby enlisted in the Navy in 1956.

Away from school, Cosby realized the importance of an education and used his four years in the Navy to prepare for the day when he would continue his schooling. Cosby learned physical therapy, traveled around the western hemisphere, and earned a high school equivalency diploma through correspondence courses. In 1961, at the age of 23, Cosby won a track and field scholarship to Temple University.

Became a Comedian

For two years, Cosby studied physical education, ran track, and played right halfback on Temple's football team. During his sophomore year, however, Cosby got his first job telling jokes while tending bar at a Philadelphia coffeehouse called the Cellar. His salary was five dollars a night. According to Cosby, this was the real beginning of his comedy career. "I understood that if people enjoy conversation with the bartender, they leave tips," he told the Los Angeles Times "So I began collecting jokes, and learning how to work them up, stretch them out."

From the Cellar he moved to a Philadelphia nightclub called the Underground and finally, in the spring of 1962, to New York City's Greenwich Village, where for $60 a week and a room without plumbing he worked the Gaslight Cafe. At the Gaslight, he told long funny stories which brought everyday events to absurd but sweet conclusions. His comedy was one of understatement, wild sound effects, a rubbery face, and far-ranging characterizations. The Gaslight soon tripled Cosby's salary, and within months the William Morris Agency signed him to a management contract. He soon cut a comedy album and traveled the comedy club circuit, performing at the "hungry i" in San Francisco, Mr. Kelly's in Chicago, and the Flamingo in Las Vegas. Cosby's temporary leave from Temple soon became permanent. No longer a student, Bill Cosby was now a comedian.

Cosby was "a new kind of black comedian," wrote Donald Bogle, author of Blacks in American Film and Television: "In suit and tie, he looked like a well-brought-up, serious college student, a smart fellow geared to make it. Unlike Redd Foxx or Slappy White, who. . . had performed material directly pitched towards black audiences, Cosby was [a] crossover." Asked to explain the absence of racial material in his humor, Cosby told a Newsweek interviewer in 1963, "I'm trying to reach all the people. I want to play John Q. Public."

Soared to New Heights

In 1965, television producer Sheldon Leonard saw Cosby on the Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Leonard was impressed and cast Cosby as Alex Scott, an undercover CIA agent in NBC's action adventure series, I Spy. The part of the witty, multilingual Scott was intended for a white actor--no African American had ever had a lead role in a dramatic series. Nevertheless, Cosby played it with ease. He won three Emmy Awards and began what would be his pattern of playing successful, educated African Americans in a medium dominated by negative images of African Americans.

I Spy left the air after three hit seasons, but Cosby returned to television in 1969 in the Bill Cosby Show as Chet Kincaid, a physical education teacher helping disadvantaged kids in a fictional Los Angeles neighborhood. The show remained on the air for two years, but was not a hit. In fact, Cosby's acting career foundered a bit in the early 1970s. The Bill Cosby Show was canceled in the spring of 1971; his first film feature, Hickey and Boggs, was poorly received, and his 1972 comedy/variety television show, the New Bill Cosby Show, failed to find an audience.

Cosby next found success with the unlikely program Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, an animated kids show which debuted in 1972 and became a fixture on Saturday morning television. Fat Albert's storylines came from Cosby's comedy albums and boyhood memories, and Cosby served as executive producer and host. After each humorous but instructive adventure of Fat Albert, Weird Harold, Mush Mouth, and the other characters, Cosby would appear on screen and draw a lesson from the show's events that aimed to help kids put their experiences in perspective. According to Vibe contributor Cathleen Campbell, "The message was the same every time: We have the power to turn alienation into a sense of community, the power to rediscover and reinvent." The critically acclaimed program remained in production until 1984, and in 2001 Cosby signed a deal with Twentieth Century Fox to produce a live action feature film about the same Fat Albert character.

In the mid-1970s, Cosby teamed with actor-director Sidney Poitier for two successful movie comedies, 1974's Uptown Saturday Night, and 1975's Let's Do It Again. In Uptown Saturday Night he portrayed Wardell Franklin, a taxi driver trying to recover a stolen lottery ticket from the mob, in a performance the New Yorker praised as "very funny." Though Let's Do It Again was less successful, critics hailed Cosby as a major comedic talent. Still, the comedian struggled to find consistent success. Mother, Jugs & Speed, a 1976 film co-starring Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel, flopped, as did Cos, a variety show for kids, and the 1977 film A Piece of the Action, which reunited him with Poitier.

Though his successful career as an entertainer made a college degree unnecessary, Cosby spent much of the 1970s earning advanced degrees in education at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The university allowed him to substitute life experience for his uncompleted bachelor's degree and his work in prisons and on the children's television program The Electric Company for its teaching requirement. Cosby wrote a 242-page dissertation called "An Integration of the Visual Media via Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning," and in May of 1977, he was awarded a doctorate of education.

Cosby determined by the mid-1970s that he would take advantage of his wide public visibility, and his acumen as a businessman and corporate spokesman prompted Forbes magazine to call the comedian: "Bill Cosby, capitalist." With newly hired lawyer Herbert Chaice, Cosby began to seek ways to gain a portion of the profits he generated. Their strategies led to Cosby's attaining interests in the Coca-Cola Company, for which he had long been a spokesman, and in other business ventures. Cosby also became a ubiquitous pitchman whose commercials for Jell-O, Kodak, Del Monte, Ford Motor Company, and other businesses made him one of the most recognizable people in America.

While Cosby remained a strong nightclub act in this period, his film and television work continued to be less than impressive. He and Richard Pryor portrayed bumbling dentists in 1979's California Suite, roles which the New Yorker complained had "racist overtones." He appeared in Disney's The Devil and Max Devlin and was featured in the in-concert film Bill Cosby--Himself. He also worked as a guest host for the Tonight Show where, according to Donald Bogle, he "came across as rather arrogant and occasionally insensitive, looking a little like a Vegas burnout case."

Starred in a Hit Television Show

In 1982, Cosby let it be known that he was interested in a weekly series. Production companies, recognizing his popularity, approached him with offers. Cosby chose a show pitched by former ABC executives Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey, and demanded a salary and an equal split of all of the show's profits. Werner and Carsey agreed to this rare arrangement, and on September 20, 1984, The Cosby Show debuted on NBC. As Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable, Cosby and his lawyer wife, played by Phylicia Rashad, dealt with the ups and downs of family life. The show's humor was warm and universal. The New York Times called it "the classiest and most entertaining new situation comedy of the season." It reached number three in its first year, was number one for the next four seasons, and remained in the top 20 until its final episode in 1992. The Cosby Show had 80 million regular viewers at the height of its popularity and its ratings pulled NBC from third to first place among the networks.

The show--which mirrored Cosby's own life with his wife, Camille, and their five children--generated a large sociological debate, since it portrayed African Americans and parents as they had never been seen on television before. The New York Times's Bill Carter wrote that "it restored the television image of the parent as loving authority figure, and it gave viewers, black and white, an unwaveringly positive look at family life, as lived in a home headed by two professional parents who happened to be black." Some attacked The Cosby Show for presenting an unrealistically idealized portrait of the African American family. The Huxtables were too well off, too smart, too "perfect," said critics. Cosby responded that his television family offered a positive alternative to harsher images available on television and elsewhere.

Asked if he thought The Cosby Show would have been as popular if it had been more aggressive on racial issues, Cosby told the Los Angeles Times: "No. Because I don't know how to do that without getting angry at racial bigotry. That's not funny to me." Henry Louis Gates, Jr., chairman of Harvard University's African American Studies Program, told the New York Times that Cosby "put race and economic issues on the back burner so we could see a black family dealing with all the things black people deal with the same as all other people. It was the first time most of us as black people have felt a sense of identity with and resemblance to the kind of values we have in common, our relationships with our parents and our siblings."

"No series in the history of television. . .has ever been more about education," wrote Dennis A. Williams in Emerge. The Huxtable parents consistently reminded their children of the importance of a college education, and the opening credit that listed "William H. Cosby, Jr., Ed.D." was a powerful reminder of where education could take a person. Both The Cosby Show and its spinoff, A Different World (set in a fictional black college), made higher education a viable option to thousands of young African Americans. During their run, applications to African American colleges went up dramatically. "You've got to figure we made a heck of an impression on people who wanted to go to college," Cosby told the Los Angeles Times.

Rose to the Top

When The Cosby Show went into syndication in 1987, Bill Cosby, as half owner of the show's profits, became a very rich man. According to Forbes, competing independent stations doubled previous records in their bidding for the program. By 1992, total syndication for the show reached $1 billion, of which Cosby received $333 million. With all of this money, Cosby and his wife, Camille, became active philanthropists. In 1988, they donated $20 million to Spelman College in Atlanta, the biggest single contribution ever made to a black college.

During The Cosby Show's eight-year run, Cosby published four books: Fatherhood (1986), Time Flies (1987), Love and Marriage (1989), and Childhood (1991). Each of the fast-paced and hilarious books hit the bestseller list, though critical reaction was mixed. The New York Times's Karen Ray complained that Fatherhood contained "only one joke. . .stretched and stretched some more." But Laura Green wrote in the same paper that readers of Love and Marriage would "giggle with self-recognition." Less successful were the movies he made during this period. Critics and audiences agreed that Leonard Part VI (1987) and Ghost Dad (1990) were undisputed and undistinguished duds.

As the children in The Cosby Show grew older and went off to college or got married, some critics complained of a decline in quality. But the show remained popular as Cosby showcased African American entertainers, used the character of Theo to mirror his own son's struggle with a learning disability, and brought in women writers to focus on a female character's first period and the problems of a teen-age girl who is pressured to have sex. Williams applauded The Cosby Show for being the most ethnically diverse program on television, but "most significantly," he wrote, "Cosby combines unspoken racial pride and its color-blind premise in a conscious promotion of personal achievement that might please both Thurgood Marshall and Clarence Thomas." In the spring of 1992, The Cosby Show ended its fabulously successful run. "I don't have anything left to say," Cosby told the New York Times. "That may be why it's not a sad, sad moment. I'm satisfied."

Not one to rest on his laurels, Cosby returned to television the following fall with a syndicated version of the old Groucho Marx game show You Bet Your Life. You Bet Your Life was supposed to be a sure money maker, but was canceled midway through its first season due to low ratings. Cosby went back to NBC for a series of light television mystery movies in 1993, to be followed by The Cosby Mysteries series in 1994. The Cosby Mysteries failed to find a sustained audience, and was canceled.

Although Cosby has always avoided racial humor in his comedy, the highly-respected star began to speak out about portrayals of African Americans in American entertainment in the 1990s. Upon his 1994 induction into the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame, Cosby asked network television executives to "stop this horrible massacre of images [of African Americans] that are being put on the screen now. I'm begging you, because it isn't us." A few months earlier, Cosby told Newsweek: "Someone at the very top has to say, 'OK, enough of this. ...' Today's writers look on TV as just a joke machine. And when it comes to African Americans, the joke's on us."

Undaunted by the failure of The Cosby Mysteries, Cosby returned to primetime television in 1996 with a new sitcom entitled Cosby. The show centers around the life of Hilton Lucas (Cosby), an airline employee who loses his job as a result of downsizing. Without a steady job, Lucas spends time around the house dispensing advice to those around him about how to cope with the challenges of daily life. Phylicia Rashad, who played Cosby's wife on The Cosby Show, co-stars as Lucas's wife Ruth. The show focuses around Ruth and Hilton's relationship, and episodes have also tackled complex social issues such as drug addiction and absentee parents. In 1996, Cosby won the People's Choice Award as America's Favorite New Television Comedy Series.

Confronted With Tragedy

In early 1997, Cosby was faced with one of the most difficult periods of his life. On January 16, 1997, Cosby's only son, Ennis, was robbed and murdered on a Los Angeles highway after he stopped to fix a flat tire. Shortly after the murder, a 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant named Mikhail Markhasev was arrested and charged with the crime. In 1998, Markhasev was convicted of Ennis's murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

On the same day that Ennis was murdered, a Southern California woman named Autumn Jackson came forward and alleged that she was Cosby's illegitimate daughter. Jackson and an accomplice had threatened to expose the story to the media unless they received $40 million dollars from Cosby. The pair were arrested in New York City by the FBI and were charged with extortion. Cosby acknowledged that he had an affair with Jackson's mother, Shawn Upshaw, and had paid her $100,000 so that she would not disclose their affair. He also paid some of Jackson's educational expenses. However, Cosby strongly denied that he was Jackson's father. Jackson was found guilty of extortion and ordered to publicly apologize to Cosby. She was also sentenced to a 26-month term in prison. After serving only 14 months, Jackson's conviction was overturned by an appeals court. The court then reversed itself and restored her conviction in 1999.

Moved On With Courage and Dignity

Despite the tremendous grief he felt over the loss of his son, Cosby did not retreat into isolation and self-pity. Rather, he remained in the public eye and conducted himself with grace and dignity. Cosby returned to the set of Cosby and immersed himself in his work. As he told Cosby executive producer Norman Steinberg, which was reported in People, "A lot of people depend on me. I have to open my store. This is what I do." While appearing at a benefit held in October of 1997 in New York, People reported that Cosby told those assembled, "Now I don't want you to think that because of what happened to me this year, I'm going to meet you at the bus station and ask you if you found Christ. No, no."

Cosby concentrated his efforts on finding ways to honor and preserve his son's memory, a son whom he referred to as "my hero." Shortly after Ennis's death, the Cosby family launched a charitable organization called the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby Foundation. The organization is focused on promoting the early detection and treatment of dyslexia, a condition that Ennis had worked to overcome in his own life. "Hello, Friend" was added to the organization's title because this was Ennis's trademark greeting. Cosby also created a series of books for children featuring a character called "Little Bill". The "Little Bill" books feature children with learning problems and are designed to help parents to teach values to their children. In 1999 Cosby adapted the "Little Bill" books into a television series for preschool children. The program, which was contracted by the Nickelodeon channel was renewed into 2001. In an interview on CBS "This Morning", which was quoted on black voices.com, Cosby remarked that his son wanted to write stories "about children with learning differences. Of course with his murder, this cut everything short. So I dedicated all of this to him." In 1998, Cosby released an album featuring various jazz artists entitled Hello Friend: To Ennis With Love.

In 1998, Cosby was among five performers who were saluted at the Kennedy Center Honors in Washington, D.C. A ceremony was held at the Kennedy Center and was attended by President and Mrs. Clinton. In her remarks, which were quoted in Jet, Phylicia Rashad praised her friend and television co-star, "It doesn't take a lot of intelligence to put people down, but it takes Bill's intelligence, his sensibility, and his grace to embrace the whole world with care and to uplift it with laughter."

Cosby published a book entitled Congratulations! Now What?: A Book For Graduates in 1999. Using his characteristic humor, Cosby offered words of wisdom and advice to new college graduates. In her review of Congratulations! Now What? on amazon.com, Brenda Pittsley noted that "graduates--and their now-broke parents--will find a reason to smile on every page." Ray Olson, in his review of the book for Booklist, remarked that "no comedian knows better how to speak the worst fatalisms and reduce an audience to tears of both laughter and sentiment. Fine, fine humor." The following year he published a series of vignettes on life, called Cosbyology. In 2003, his book of writings about improving his eating habits and health was published, titled I Am What I Ate ... And I'm Frightened.

Cosby has continued to speak out against the generally poor quality of television programming. "The problem with television programming today is that we are now in the age of stooping as in to bend down to make yourself lower." he remarked to Jet. "The bar is not being raised at all. There is too much focus on orifices and the size of organs and body parts. Many of the writers write like they never had a course in Western Literature. They seem to be taking their language off the street corners." Cosby has consistently held himself to a higher standard. He has created a body of work that offers wholesome entertainment for people of all ages. As CBS Television President Leslie Moonves told Jet, "At its best, television is a medium that entertains as well as informs. Throughout his career, Bill Cosby has accomplished this with grace, humor, and unparalleled passion for his craft."

Awards

Eight Grammy awards for best comedy album; four Emmy awards; NAACP Image Award; Golden Globe Award; four People's Choice awards; Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Hall of Fame inductee, 1994; Kennedy Center Awards Honoree, 1998;People's Choice Award for Favorite All-Time Television Star, 1999; People's Choice Award for Favorite Male Performer in a New Television Series, 1997; Image Award for Outstanding Performance in a Youth or Children's Series/Special for: Little Bill, 2001; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 2002; Lifetime Achievement Emmy Award, 2003.

Works

Selected writings

• The Wit and Wisdom of Fat Albert, Windmill Books, 1973.
• Bill Cosby's Personal Guide to Tennis Power; or Don't Lower the Lob, Raise the Net, Random House, 1975.
• Fatherhood, Doubleday, 1986.
• Time Flies, Doubleday, 1987.
• Love and Marriage, Doubleday, 1989.
• Childhood, Putnam, 1991.
• The Best Way to Play, (Little Bill series), Cartwheel Books, 1997.
• The Meanest Thing to Say, (Little Bill series), Cartwheel Books, 1997.
• Shipwreck Saturday, (Little Bill series), Cartwheel Books, 1998.
• Hooray for the Dandelion Warriors! (Little Bill series), Cartwheel Books, 1999.
• Congratulations! Now What?: A Book For Graduates, Hyperion, 1999.
• The Day I Was Rich, (Little Bill series), Scholastic Trade, 1999.
• The Day I Saw My Father Cry, (Little Bill series), Cartwheel Books, 2000.
• Cosbyology,Hyperion, 2001.
• I Am What I Ate ... And I'm Frightened,HarperCollins, 2003.

Further Reading

Books

• Bogle, Donald, Blacks in American Film and Television, Simon & Schuster, 1988.
• Cohen, David, and Charles M. Collins, editors, The African Americans, Viking Studio Books, 1993.
• Salley, Columbus, The Black 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential African-Americans, Past and Present, Citadel Press, 1992.

Periodicals

• Booklist, May 1, 1999.
• Broadcasting, February 22, 1993, p. 5.
• Ebony, June 1977.
• Emerge, May 1992, pp. 22-26.
• Essence, March 1994, p. 84.
• Forbes, September 28, 1992, p. 85.
• Jet, December 28, 1998, p. 34; April 3, 2000, p. 60.
• Los Angeles Times, December 10, 1989, p. Calendar-6; April 26, 1992, p. Calendar-7; August 28, 1992, p. F1.
• Newsweek, June 17, 1963; December 6, 1993, pp. 59-61.
• New Yorker, June 17, 1974, p. 89; January 8, 1979, p. 49.
• New York Times, September 20, 1984, p. C30; December 18, 1987, p. C30; January 21, 1988, p. C26; November 8, 1988, p. A1; January 12, 1989, p. D21; May 14, 1989, sec. 7, p. 23; February 21, 1991, p. C13; October 27, 1991, sec. 7, p. 20; April 26, 1992, sec. 2, p. 1.
• Playboy, December 1985.
• People, December 29, 1997, p. 54-55.
• Time, July 16, 1990, p. 86; February 28, 1994, pp. 60-62.
• Vibe, November 1993, p. 120.

Other

• Additional information for this profile was taken from Bill Cosby: In Words and Pictures (an Ebony/Jet special issue), by Robert E. Johnson, Johnson Publishing; www.blackvoices.com; and www.amazon.com.

— Jordan Wankoff and David G. Oblender

Cosby, Bill (William Henry Cosby, Jr.) (kŏz'bē), 1937-, American actor, b. Philadelphia. He became known as a comedian and was subsequently the first African-American actor to star in a dramatic series on television (I Spy, 1965-68). He has since starred in several television series, most notably the situation comedy The Cosby Show (1984-92), the most popular program on American television during the late 1980s. Cosby has won numerous Emmy awards and written several books, including Fatherhood (1986). He was inducted (1992) into the Television Hall of Fame, and six years later he was awarded a presidential medal.

(kawz-bee)

A twentieth-century American comedian, actor, and producer. He is known for his stand-up routines, including “Fat Albert,” which later became an animated cartoon, and for his groundbreaking television series I Spy and The Cosby Show.

Quotes:

"A word to the wise isn't necessary, it is the stupid ones who need all the advice."

"The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague."

"If the new American father feels bewildered and even defeated, let him take comfort from the fact that whatever he does in any fathering situation has a fifty percent chance of being right."

"That married couples can live together day after day is a miracle the Vatican has overlooked."

"Nothing separates the generations more than music. By the time a child is eight or nine, he has developed a passion for his own music that is even stronger than his passions for procrastination and weird clothes."

"Parents are not quite interested injustice, they are interested in quiet."

See more famous quotes by Bill Cosby

Biography

African-American entertainer Bill Cosby, in his own words, "started out as a child," the son of an eight-dollars-a-day maid and an absentee father. A product of grinding poverty, Cosby escaped his rundown Philadelphia neighborhood by dropping out of high school and joining the navy. He earned his diploma via correspondence course, then earned a football scholarship to Temple University. Working nights as a bartender, Cosby discovered he had the ability to make people laugh, so he temporarily shelved his plans to become an athletics teacher and set out to become a nightclub comedian. Most black comics of the era used the race issue in their act; this didn't quite work for Cosby, but relating humorous reminiscences about himself and his childhood buddies worked beautifully. After numerous TV guest shots and several top-selling, Grammy Award-winning record albums, Cosby was signed by producer Sheldon Leonard to co-star with Robert Culp in a weekly TV espionage series, I Spy. This was an era of acute racial tension; many NBC executives were wary about a black leading man, and quite a few Southern affiliates threatened not to run the show, but Leonard, a street scrapper from way back, refused to back down. I Spy was a hit, earning Cosby an Emmy. As the series progressed, the camaraderie between Cosby and Culp deepened, and by the end of the series, Culp was talking and ad-libbing in the same low-key, offbeat cadence that Cosby had adopted for his club appearances! After I Spy, Cosby signed a sweetheart deal with NBC, which guaranteed him a two-year run on his next program, whether the ratings were good or not. The Bill Cosby Show cast the star as high school coach Chet Kincaid, and was unusual for the time in that it was a sitcom minus a laughtrack. At times it was a sitcom minus laughs as well, but NBC had made its promise, and Cosby did his best. In the '70s he teamed with actor/director Sidney Poitier to make a trio of popular crime/comedy features: Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again, and A Piece of the Action. Viewers who think of Cosby in terms of one success after another have forgotten such failed 1970s TV projects as The New Bill Cosby Show and Cos. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there was The Cosby Show, the eight-season wonder that single-handedly rescued the sitcom format from oblivion in 1984 and enabled the woebegone NBC network to crack the Number One slot in the ratings week after week. And there were guest spots on the award-winning children's show The Electric Company and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1969-84) a superlative Saturday morning cartoon show supervised by Cosby that managed to be what is now called "prosocial" without losing any of the fun. He has also been the long-time commercial spokesman for Jell-O. In the fall of 1996 Cosby returned to prime time TV with yet another The Cosby Show sitcom, again set in New York City and co-starring Phylicia Rashad. Although he has been unable to build a successful movie career, Cosby's TV success has made him one of the wealthiest entertainers in the history of the business. Cosby's success is not limited to the entertainment industry, as he returned to school in the '70s and earned a Ph.D. degree in education and has since become a staunch advocate and supporter of education in the Black community, donating time and money to the cause. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

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Biography

Although African-American comedians had long been a staple of the standup circuit prior to the emergence of Bill Cosby, none had come even remotely close to reaching the same heights of commercial success or universal acceptance. Before Cosby, black comics were largely relegated to the so-called "chitlin circuit" of black nightclubs and theaters, their albums banned from white-owned record stores; after Cosby, comedians of all racial and cultural backgrounds found a home in the mainstream, and were even given the opportunity to prove their talents in major film and television roles. Simply put, Cosby broke comedy's color barrier, and he set the stage for the widespread success of everyone from Richard Pryor to Eddie Murphy.

William H. Cosby, Jr. was born in Philadelphia on July 12, 1937. The son of a maid and an absentee father, he grew up in abject poverty, ultimately dropping out of high school to join the Navy. After earning his diploma through correspondence courses, he won a football scholarship to Temple University; while taking classes during the day, he tended bar in the evenings, where his easy ability to make customers laugh resulted in the decision to pursue a career in comedy.

Cosby quickly distinguished himself from his peers in a number of ways: not only did his relaxed, conversational style rely on warm, anecdotal childhood recollections instead of one-liners and gags, but unlike other black comedians, he refused to tell racial jokes or use profanities, establishing himself as a talent suitable for all ages and backgrounds. As a result, his success was immediate: his Grammy-nominated 1963 debut, Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow...Right! established him as an overnight star as his breezy comic sensibility marked a significant shift away from the "sick" comedy of Lenny Bruce and Shelley Berman then so much in vogue.

1964's I Started Out as a Child -- the first of a record six consecutive Grammy-winning releases -- proved even more popular with audiences, and soon Cosby was contacted by television producer Sheldon Leonard to star with Robert Culp in the espionage series I Spy. Despite controversy -- a number of Southern affiliates threatened not to air the show -- Leonard stood firm, and Cosby became the first black ever to star in a dramatic program; ultimately, the show was a huge hit, and he even won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Agent Alexander Scott.

Even at the series' peak, he continued writing and performing standup, issuing the Top 20 hit Why Is There Air? in 1965. After 1966's Wonderfulness reached the Top Ten, Cosby hit his commercial peak the following year with Revenge, which rose to the number two spot. Significantly, the album also marked the debut of Fat Albert and his gang, a group of beloved Cosby characters which later formed the basis of a long-running animated series for children. A flurry of releases followed as Cosby fulfilled his Warner Bros. contract with 1968's To Russell, My Brother Whom I Slept With, and 200 M.P.H.; along with the following year's It's True! It's True!, the two-record 1969 set 8:15/12:15 appeared on Tetragrammatron, a short-lived label which the comedian co-owned.

After signing to Uni, he issued a self-titled 1969 effort, followed by the sitcom The Bill Cosby Show. With the program, Cosby suffered his first major artistic setback; although NBC committed to two seasons of the show, ratings were weak, and at the end of the two-year period, NBC pulled the plug. Although albums like 1970's Live: Madison Square Garden Center and When I Was a Kid were successful, the period following the series' cancellation marked a crossroads for Cosby; his well of childhood reminiscences was running dry, and he clearly needed to explore new ground.

Consequently, beginning with 1971's For Adults Only, he made a concerted shift towards more mature material; while still not risque, his routines reflected a more grown-up attitude and sensibility. That same year he launched The New Bill Cosby Show, a disastrous variety program which lasted only one season. Not surprisingly, he took a subsequent hiatus from television; after recording 1972's Inside the Mind of Bill Cosby and the next year's Fat Albert, he shifted his focus to film, teaming with Sidney Poitier in 1974 for Uptown Saturday Night, the first in a successful series of crime comedies which also included 1975's Let's Do It Again and 1977's A Piece of the Action.

Regardless of his success in other media, Cosby continued his prolific recording output; with 1976's Bill Cosby Is Not Himself These Days (Rat Own, Rat Own, Rat Own) and 1977's Disco Bill, he satirized current trends in R&B. (In the late '60s and early '70s, he also recorded a number of "straight" music albums like Silver Throat Sings and At Last Bill Cosby Really Sings.) After another failed television attempt, 1976's children's prime-time variety program Cos, he came back to standup with a vengeance for 1977's My Father Confused Me, What Should I Do?, a return to the family-oriented vignettes which first won him an audience. 1978's Bill's Best Friend continued the trend, as well as offering cautionary messages against alcohol and drug use, while the popularity of concert films -- primarily those of Richard Pryor -- sparked the 1982 feature and soundtrack Bill Cosby: Himself.

After keeping a low profile for several years, he resurfaced in 1984 with The Cosby Show, an NBC series inspired largely by his own family experiences. The show was an unparalleled success which brought new life to the sitcom format -- a vehicle pronounced dead by many onlookers -- and quickly shot to the number one slot in the Nielsen ratings, a position where it remained throughout the majority of its eight-season run. Although his popularity was never in question before the show's debut, The Cosby Show made its titular star even more of a success; not only was he the most popular and beloved talent on television, but he also became a successful author, and in 1986 he also returned to recording with the album Those of You with or Without Children, You'll Understand. Only film remained impenetrable, as both 1987's abysmal Leonard, Part 6 and 1990's similarly bad Ghost Dad bombed miserably.

After the 1991 LP Oh Baby, the comedian opted to end production of The Cosby Show to explore new endeavors. The first, a syndicated update of the old Groucho Marx quiz show You Bet Your Life, ended after only one season; the second, The Cosby Mysteries, fared no better. Clearly, his audience wanted to see the performer in his natural milieu; accordingly, the family sitcom Cosby debuted in 1996. Two years later, he became the host for Kids Say the Darndest Things, which enjoyed four seasons on the CBS network. The 2000s found Cosby working with music -- first with State of Emergency, a hip-hop album concerned with social issues, and later with Bill Cosby Presents Badfoot Brown and the Bunions Bradford Funeral & Marchi, an official re-release of the 1971 jazz-funk album featuring Cosby on the electric piano. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi

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