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Bill Cosby
Cosby speaks at Frederick Douglass High School, October 2006
BornWilliam Henry Cosby, Jr.
Occupation(s)Actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist
Years active1962—present
SpouseCamille Hanks (1964–present) 5 children
Websitehttp://www.billcosby.com/

William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American comedian, actor, author, television producer, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs, then landed a starring role in the 1960s action show I Spy. He later starred in his own series, The Bill Cosby Show, in 1969. He was one of the major characters on the children's television show The Electric Company for its first two seasons, and created the humorous educational cartoon series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, about a group of young friends growing up in the city. Cosby also acted in numerous films. Cosby's net worth is estimated at over $300 million.

During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in what is considered one of the decade's defining sitcoms, The Cosby Show, which lasted eight seasons from 1984 to 1992, and is still seen in syndication. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an upper middle-class African-American family. He also produced the hit sitcom A Different World, which became second to The Cosby Show in ratings. In the 1990s, Cosby starred in Cosby, which aired from 1996 to 2000, and during the show's last two seasons, hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things, and appeared in a number of movies. He has also appeared on the stand-up circuit.

His good-natured, fatherly image has made him a popular personality and garnered him the nickname of "America's Dad". He has also been a sought-after spokesman and over the years has endorsed numerous products including Jell-O Pudding, Kodak Film, Ford, Texas Instruments and Coca-Cola (as well as New Coke). In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Bill Cosby on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

He earned an Ed.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1976. For his doctoral research, he wrote a dissertation entitled "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".

Early life

Cosby was born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is one of four sons born to Anna Pearl (née Hite), a maid, and William Henry Cosby, Sr., a cook for the U.S. Navy. During much of his early childhood, Cosby's father was away in the US armed forces and spent several years fighting in World War II. As a student, he described himself as a class clown. Cosby was the captain of the baseball and track & field teams at Mary Channing Wister Elementary School in Philadelphia, as well as the class president. Early on, though, teachers noted his propensity for clowning around rather than studying. At Fitz Simmons Junior High, Cosby began acting in plays as well as continuing his devotion to playing sports. He went on to Central High School, an academically challenging magnet school, but his full schedule of playing football, basketball, baseball, and running track made it hard for him. In addition, Cosby was working before and after school, selling produce, shining shoes, and stocking shelves at a supermarket to help out the family. He transferred to Germantown High School, but failed the tenth grade. Instead of repeating, he got a job as an apprentice at a shoe repair shop, which he liked, but could not see himself doing the rest of his life. Subsequently, he joined the Navy, serving at the Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, Naval Station Argentia, Newfoundland and at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland.

While serving in the Navy as a Hospital Corpsman for four years, Cosby worked in physical therapy with some seriously injured Korean War casualties, which helped him discover what was important to him. Then he immediately realized the need for an education, and finished his equivalency diploma via correspondence courses. He then won a track and field scholarship to Philadelphia's Temple University in 1961-62, and studied physical education while running track and playing fullback on the football team. Cosby also joined the school's chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

Cosby loved humor and he called himself the class clown. Even as he progressed through his undergraduate studies, Cosby had continued to hone his talent for humor, joking with fellow enlistees in the service and then with college friends. When he began bar tending at the Cellar, a club in Philadelphia, to earn money, he became fully aware of his ability to make people laugh. He worked his customers and saw his tips increase, then ventured on to the stage.

Cosby left Temple to pursue a career in comedy, though he would return to collegiate studies in the 1970s. He lined up gigs at clubs in Philadelphia and soon was off to New York City, where he appeared at the Gaslight Cafe starting in 1962. He lined up dates in Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Washington DC, among others. He received national exposure on NBC's Tonight Show in the summer of 1963 and released Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow...Right!, the first of a series of popular comedy albums in 1964.

While many comics were using the growing freedom of that decade to explore controversial, sometimes risqué material, Cosby was making his reputation with humorous recollections of his childhood. Many Americans wondered about the absence of race as a topic in Cosby's stories. As Cosby's success grew he had to defend his choice of material regularly; as he argued, "A white person listens to my act and he laughs and he thinks, 'Yeah, that's the way I see it too.' Okay. He's white. I'm Negro. And we both see things the same way. That must mean that we are alike. Right? So I figure this way I'm doing as much for good race relations as the next guy."

I Spy

In 1965, Cosby achieved a first for African-Americans when he co-starred with Robert Culp in I Spy, an adventure show in the espionage genre inspired by the James Bond films. Cosby's presence as the first black star of a dramatic television series made I Spy unique. At first, Cosby and NBC executives were concerned that some affiliates might be unwilling to carry the series. At the beginning of the 1965 season, however, only four stations—in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama—declined the show. But the rest of the country was taken with the show's exotic locales and the authentic chemistry of the stars, and it became one of the ratings hits of that television season. I Spy finished among the twenty most-watched shows that year, and Cosby was honored with three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Although ostensibly focused on Culp's character, the show had clearly become a vehicle for his co-star.

Yet throughout the series' three-year run Cosby was repeatedly confronted with the question of race. For him it was enough that I Spy portrayed two men who worked as equals despite their different races; but critics took the show to task for not having a black character engage the racial issues that inflamed the country at that time. Cosby was relieved when the series ended, enabling him to concentrate on his family and to return to live performing.

During the run of the series, Cosby continued to do stand-up comedy performances and released a half-dozen record albums. He also began to dabble in singing, recording Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings in 1967, which provided him with a hit single with his recording of "Li'l Ole Man". He would record several more musical albums into the early 1970s, but his recordings continued to be primarily of his stand-up comedy work.

Fat Albert, The Bill Cosby Show, and the 1970s

He still pursued a variety of television projects: as a regular guest host on The Tonight Show and the star of an annual special for NBC. He returned with another series in 1969, The Bill Cosby Show, a situation comedy that ran for two seasons. Cosby played a physical education teacher at a Los Angeles high school (he had actually majored in physical education at Temple University); while only a modest critical success, the show was a ratings hit, finishing eleventh in its first season.

After The Bill Cosby Show left the air, Cosby returned to his education. He began graduate work at the University of Massachusetts, qualifying under a special program that allowed for the admission of students who had not completed their bachelor's degrees, but who had had a significant impact on society and/or their communities through their careers. This professional interest led to his involvement in the PBS series The Electric Company, for which he recorded several segments teaching reading skills to young children.

In 1972, Cosby received an MA from the University of Massachusetts and was also back in prime time with a variety series, The New Bill Cosby Show. However, this time he met with poor ratings, and the show lasted only a season. More successful was a Saturday morning show, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, hosted by Cosby and based on his own childhood, running from 1972 to 1979, then from 1979 to 1984 as The New Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. Some schools used the program as a teaching tool, and Cosby himself wrote his dissertation on it in order to obtain his doctorate, also from the University of Massachusetts, in Education in 1976. Subsequently, Temple University, where Cosby had begun but never finished his undergraduate studies, would grant him his bachelor's degree on the basis of "life experience".

Also during the 1970s, Cosby and other African American actors, including Sidney Poitier, joined forces to make some successful comedy films that countered the violent "blaxploitation" films of the era. Uptown Saturday Night (1974) and Let's Do It Again (1975) were generally praised, but much of Cosby's film work has fallen flat. Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976) costarring Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel; A Piece of the Action, with Poitier; and California Suite, a compilation of four Neil Simon plays, were all panned. In addition, Cos (1976) an hour-long variety show featuring puppets, sketches, and musical numbers, was canceled within the year. Cosby was also a regular on children's public television programs starting in the 70's, hosting the "Picture Pages" segments that lasted into the early 80s.

The Cosby Show and the 1980s

Cosby's greatest television success came in September, 1984 with the debut of The Cosby Show. The program aired weekly on NBC and went on to become the highest ranking sitcom of all time. For Cosby, the new situation comedy was a response to the increasingly violent and vulgar fare the networks usually offered. Cosby is an advocate for humor that is both humorous and family-oriented. He insisted on and received total creative control of the series, and he was involved in every aspect of the series. Not surprisingly, the show had parallels to Cosby's actual family life: like the characters Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Cosby and his wife Camille were college educated, financially successful, and had five children. Essentially a throwback to the wholesome family situation comedy, The Cosby Show was unprecedented in its portrayal of an intelligent, affluent, nonstereotypical African-American family.

Much of the material from the pilot and first season of The Cosby Show was taken from his then popular video Bill Cosby: Himself, released in 1983. The series was an immediate success, debuting near the top of the ratings and staying there for most of its long run. The Cosby Show is one of only two American programs that have been #1 in the Nielsen Ratings for five consecutive seasons, along with All in the Family. People magazine called the show "revolutionary", and Newsday concurred that it was a "real breakthrough."

In 1987, Cosby attempted to return to the big screen with the spy spoof Leonard Part 6. Unfortunately, although Cosby himself was producer and wrote the story, he realized during production that the film was not going to be what he wanted and publicly denounced it, warning audiences to "stay away".

In the 1990s and 2000s

Bill Cosby's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

After The Cosby Show went off the air in 1992, Cosby embarked on a number of other projects, including a revival of the classic Groucho Marx game show You Bet Your Life (1992-1993) along with the TV-movie I Spy Returns (1994) and The Cosby Mysteries (1994). In the mid-1990s, he appeared as a detective in black and white film noir-themed commercials for Turner Classic Movies. He also made appearances in three more films, Ghost Dad (1990), The Meteor Man (1993); and Jack (1996); in addition to being interviewed in Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls (1997), a documentary about the racist bombing of a Birmingham, Alabama, church in 1963. Also in 1996, he started up a new show for CBS, Cosby, again co-starring Phylicia Rashad, his onscreen wife on The Cosby Show. Cosby co-produced the show for Carsey-Werner Productions. The show was based on a cynical British program called One Foot in the Grave, but Cosby lightened the humor. It centered on Cosby as Hilton Lucas, an iconoclastic senior citizen who tries to find a new job after being "downsized", and in the meantime, gets on his wife's nerves. Madeline Kahn costarred as Rashād's goofy business partner. Cosby was hired by CBS to be the official "spokesman" for the WWJ-TV during an advertising campaign from 1995-1998. In addition, Cosby in 1998 became the host of Kids Say the Darndest Things. After four solid seasons, Cosby was canceled. The last episode aired April 28, 2000. Kids Say the Darndest Things was also canceled the same year. Cosby continued to work with CBS through a development deal and other projects.

A series for preschoolers, Little Bill, made its debut on Nickelodeon in 1999. The network renewed the popular program in November 2000. In 2001, at an age when many give serious consideration to retirement, Cosby's agenda included the publication of a new book, as well as delivering the commencement addresses at Morris Brown College, Ohio State University, and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Also that year, he signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop a live-action feature film centering on the popular Fat Albert character from his 1970s cartoon series. Fat Albert was released in theaters in December 2004. In May 2007 he spoke at the Commencement of High Point University.

In the summer of 2009, Cosby will host a comedy gala at Montreal's Just for Laughs comedy festival, the world's largest.

Personal life

Cosby met his wife Camille Hanks while he was performing stand-up in Washington, D.C., in the early 1960s, and she was a student at the University of Maryland. They married on January 25, 1964, and had five children: daughters Erika Ranee (b. 1965), Erinn Chalene (b. 1966), Ensa Camille (b. 1973), and Evin Harrah (b. 1976), and son Ennis William (1969-1997). His son Ennis was shot dead while changing a flat tire on the side of the Interstate 405 in Los Angeles on January 16, 1997.

Bill Cosby is an active alumni supporter of his alma mater, Temple University, and in particular their men's basketball team, whose games Cosby frequently attends (particularly during the team's glory days under coach John Chaney, who is a close friend of Cosby).

Cosby is a devoted fan of the Philadelphia Eagles. In 2002, when both the Eagles' starting and backup quarterbacks were injured, Cosby sent a letter to head coach Andy Reid, joking that he was ready to play if needed.

Cosby also attends many public events, such as the 100th Millrose Games at Madison Square Garden in New York on February 2, 2007. His love for track has also been shown with his long time sponsorship, and on-track work with the Penn Relays. For many years, Cosby has been known to work the finish line at Franklin Field and congratulate athletes. In 1988, Cosby ran the anchor leg at Penn in a two team race on a 4x400 relay. In a unique twist, Cosby's team was far ahead and his premature celebration was broken when Olympic medalist Valerie Brisco-Hooks, the other team's anchor leg, patted him on the "boom-boom" and passed him en route to victory. The event ended up as a scene on The Cosby Show showing Cosby, as Dr. Huxtable, losing an important grudge match race against the team of former college rival Col. Sanford "Tailwind" Turner (USMC).

Cosby enjoys cigars, a hobby he picked up from Groucho Marx, one of his comedy influences.

Cosby maintains homes in Shelburne, Massachusetts and Cheltenham, Pennsylvania.

During the 2009 NFL Draft, he celebrated the draft with former Texas Longhorns' wide receiver Quan Cosby as a means of support. He even wore a Temple University helmet and jersey.

Bill Cosby has hosted the Los Angeles Playboy Jazz Festival since 1979. An avid musician, he's best known as a jazz drummer although he can be seen playing bass guitar with Jerry Lewis & Sammy Davis Jr. on Hugh Hefner's 70's talk show. His ribald story "The Regular Way" was featured in Playboy's December 1968 issue.

The Playboy Jazz Festival in Los Angeles 2007. Bill Cosby is on stage.

Awards and Honors

  • On March 8, 2009, Cosby presented and hosted the 'Some Enchanted Evening', a musical birthday salute to Senator Edward Kennedy.
  • In a British 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted among the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders.
  • He received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998.
  • He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.
  • He won the 2003 Bob Hope Humanitarian Award.
  • In 1969, he received the third in a long line of prestigious "Man of the Year" awards from Harvard University's famed performance group, the Hasty Pudding Theatricals.

Honorary degrees

Cosby has received honorary degrees from several colleges and universities:

Views on morality and socioeconomic issues

Main article: Pound Cake speech

In May 2004 after receiving an award at the celebration of the 50th Anniversary commemoration of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision that outlawed school segregation, Cosby made public remarks critical of African Americans who put higher priorities on sports, fashion, and "acting hard" than on education, self-respect, and self-improvement. He has made a plea for African American families to educate their children on the many different aspects of American culture (Baker).

In "Pound Cake," Cosby, whose doctorate degree is in education, asked that African American parents begin teaching their children better morals at a younger age. He directed this address to the leaders in the lower and middle economic classes of the African-American community (see main article). Cosby told reporters of the Washington Times, "Parenting needs to come to the forefront. If you need help and you don't know how to parent, we want to be able to reach out and touch" (DeBose, Brian). Richard Leiby of the Washington Post reported, "Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks Monday night at a Constitution Hall bash commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision."

Cosby again came under sharp criticism, and again he was largely unapologetic for his stance when he made similar remarks during a speech in a July 1 meeting commemorating the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. During that speech, he admonished blacks for not assisting or concerning themselves with the individuals who are involved with crime or have counter-productive aspirations. He further described those who needed attention as "blacks had forgotten the sacrifices of those in the Civil Rights Movement." The talk was interrupted several times by applause and received praise from leaders such as Jesse Jackson. The speech was featured in the landmark African-American documentary 500 Years Later which set the speech to cartoon visuals.

Georgetown University sociology professor Michael Eric Dyson wrote a book in 2005 entitled Is Bill Cosby Right or Is the Black Middle Class Out of Touch? In the book, Dyson wrote that Cosby was overlooking larger social factors that reinforce poverty and associated crime; factors such as deteriorating schools, stagnating wages, dramatic shifts in the economy, offshoring and downsizing, chronic underemployment, and job and capital flight. Dyson suggested Cosby's comments "betray classist, elitist viewpoints rooted in generational warfare."

In a 2008 interview Cosby mentioned Chicago, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Oakland, Detroit and Springfield, Massachusetts as some of the cities where crime was high and young African-American men were being murdered and jailed in disproportionate numbers. Cosby stood his ground against criticism and affirmed that African-American parents were continuing to fail to inculcate proper standards of moral behavior. Cosby still lectures to black communities (usually at churches) about his frustrations with certain problems prevalent in underprivileged urban communities such as taking part in illegal drugs, teenage pregnancy, Black Entertainment Television, high school dropouts, anti-intellectualism, gangsta rap, vulgarity, thievery, offensive clothing, vanity, parental alienation, single parenting and failing to live up to the ideals of Frederick Douglass, Martin Luther King, Jr. and the African American ancestors that preceded Generation X. Cosby criticizes those African Americans who associate his ideals with race treachery.

Discography

This section needs expansion with: Album peaks, Canadian/other int'l peaks. You can help by making an edit requestadding to it . (August 2009)

Albums

Singles

Year Single Chart Positions
US US R&B
1967 "Little Ol' Man (Uptight—Everything's Alright)" 4 18
1970 "Grover Henson Feels Forgotten" 70 —
1976 "I Luv Myself Better Than I Luv Myself" — 59
"Yes, Yes, Yes" 46 11

Books

  • Fatherhood (1986) - ISBN 0-425-09772-2
  • Time Flies (1987) - ISBN 0-553-27724-3
  • Love and Marriage (1989) - ISBN 0-553-28467-3
  • Childhood (1991) - ISBN 0-399-13647-9
  • Kids Say the Darndest Things (1998) - ISBN 0-553-58126-0
  • Congratulations! Now What? A Book for Graduates (1999) - ISBN 0-7868-6572-5
  • American Schools: The 100 Billion Dollar Challenge (2000) - ISBN 0-7595-5000-X (with Dwight Allen Ed.D.)
  • Cosbyology: Essays and Observations from the Doctor of Comedy (2001) - ISBN 0-7868-6810-4
  • I Am What I Ate...and I'm Frightened!!! (2003) - ISBN 0-06-054573-9
  • Friends of a Feather (2003) - ISBN 0-06-009147-9
  • Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors (2007) - ISBN 1-59-555092-5 (with Alvin F. Poussaint M.D.)

References

  1. Asante, Molefi Kete (2002). 100 Greatest African Americans: A Biographical Encyclopedia. Amherst, New York. Prometheus Books. ISBN 1-57392-963-8.
  2. Copies of his dissertation are available from University Microfilms International as document number 7706369.
  3. Bill Cosby Biography (1937-)
  4. A Glimpse at Bill Cosby's Virginia Roots
  5. "Bill Cosby Trivia". TV.com. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  6. "Bill Cosby and Me - Behind the Lens". 2007-09-11. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  7. ^ "Bill Cosby Biography". Buzzle.com. Retrieved 2008-05-04.
  8. William Morris Agency, retrieved May 31, 2006
  9. ^ "Transition Profile — Bill Cosby". Veterans Careers. Military.com. Retrieved 2007-05-31.
  10. Kennedy Center, retrieved May 31, 2006
  11. ESPER, retrieved May 31, 2006
  12. Verve Records, retrieved May 31, 2006
  13. Smith, Ronald L. (1997). Cosby: The Life of a Comedy Legend. Prometheus Books. p. 57. ISBN 1-57392-126-1. {{cite book}}: Check |isbn= value: checksum (help)
  14. His Ed.D is mistakenly thought by many to be honorary. The degree was earned, and the real dissertation can easily be found in the UMI ProQuest Dissertation Abstracts as pub. no. AAT 7706369
  15. Leonard Part 6 (1987)
  16. ^ Bill Cosby to be Rensselaer’s Commencement Speaker
  17. Cosby, Bill. "The Regular Way", page 115, Playboy, December 1968
  18. "BIOGRAPHY OF BILL COSBY". John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Retrieved 2007-02-23.
  19. Celebrating honors and achievements "Commencement 2007- Carnegie Mellon University"
  20. "Retiring College President Lee Eliot Berk and Bill Cosby Honored at Berklee College of Music's 2004 Commencement" (Press release). Berklee College of Music. 2004-05-08. Retrieved 2007-02-23.
  21. Yale Bulletin and Calendar Vol 31, No 31. June 6, 2003.
  22. http://www.haverford.edu/commencement/cosby.htm
  23. Bill Cosby Pound Cake in film 500 Years Later
  24. ^ KTVU Staff. Is Bill Cosby Right or Is the Black Middle Class Out of Touch? (Map). National Public Radio. Retrieved 23 July 2009.
  25. Michael Eric Dyson. The Injustice Bill Cosby Won't See (Map). The Washington Post. Retrieved 28 July 2009.
  26. http://www.diamondsuite.net/index.php/?p=420
General References
  • DeBose, Brian (September 9, 2004). ""Cosby urges leaders to aid black families"". The Washington Times. Retrieved 2007-11-04.
  • Leiby, Richard. "Publications with a Cannes-Do Attitude." Washington Post. May 19, 2004: 3.
  • Morano, Marc. "Bill Cosby was hounded by President Nixon." World Entertainment News Network. May 1, 2000. 2 Mar 2006. www.imdb.com
  • "Segregated Expectations" USA Today. May 15, 2003: 12.
  • Wu, Frank H. "Brown at 50: Keeping Promises." Black Issues in Higher Education. May 20, 2004: 49
  • "Biography — William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr". Biographies in Naval History. Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy. June 22, 2006. Retrieved 2007-11-04.

External links


Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series
1954–1975
1976–2000
2001–present
Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Television Series – Musical or Comedy

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