Bill Cosby
William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr., Ed.D (born July 12, 1937) is an American actor, comedian, television producer and activist.
Bill Cosby is one of the United States' most popular and admired entertainers, known for his wit and warmth both onstage and off. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start working clubs and making comedy albums, then moved into television with a vanguard role in the 1960s action show I Spy. He later starred in his own series, The Bill Cosby Show, in the early 1970s, 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, although none has received the acclaim of his television work. During the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in one of the decade's defining cultural products, The Cosby Show, which aired from 1984 to 1992 and featured a middle-class African American family without resorting to the kinds of vulgar stereotypes previously seen among African American characters in prime-time television. Though some argued that The Cosby Show ignored the issues of racial inequity still prevalent in society, others maintained that it showcased positive role models.
The late 1990s brought trouble for Cosby, first in early 1997 with the death of his only son, Ennis, who was shot to death on a Los Angeles freeway in a random act of violence. Also that year, he was dragged into a court case that involved a young woman who was charged with extortion in claiming that he was her biological father-a shocking accusation that Cosby denied. Cosby admitted to having a one-time affair with the woman's mother. Despite these personal setbacks, Cosby did not slow down at all in the 1990s, starring in Cosby , which first aired in 1996, and hosting Kids Say the Darndest Things, which began in 1998, as well as making more movies. He has also continued appearing on the stand-up circuit, delighting audiences with his gentle, paternal brand of comedy. His material consists mainly of anecdotal tales, often dealing with his upbringing and raising his own family, and he is known for having a clean, kid-friendly routine. His good-natured, fatherly image has made him a popular personality and earned him the nickname of "America's Dad," and he has also been a sought-after spokesman for products like Jell-O Pudding and Coca-Cola.
Biography
Early life and success
William Henry Cosby, Jr., was born on July 12, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. [1] Cosby's mother, Anna Cosby, worked as a housekeeper, sometimes as many as 12 hours a day, and when Cosby was eight, his father, William Henry Cosby, joined the U.S. Navy and served as a mess steward, [2] which meant he was away from home for months at a stretch. Cosby was thus often left in charge of his younger brothers, Russell and Richard (another younger brother, James, died at age six of rheumatic fever [3]). Despite all the hard work, his family's finances suffered, and they were forced to sell their home and move to a smaller house, then into the Richard Allen housing project in the Germantown district of North Philadelphia.[4] Although the neighborhood was rough, Cosby's mother provided a firm moral ground for her sons by reading to them from the Bible and authors such as Mark Twain. However, he also enjoyed the serial radio programs of the time, such as The Lone Ranger, The Shadow, Lights Out, and the humor of Jack Benny, Jimmy Durante, Fred Allen, and George Burns with Gracie Allen. [5]
In school, Cosby was bright and athletic, the captain of the baseball and track teams at Mary Channing Wister Elementary School as well as 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, which was known to be academically challenging, but his full schedule of playing football, basketball, baseball, and running track, not to mention his dedication to joking in class, 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. [6] 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 base at Quantico, Virginia and at the Bethesda Naval Hospital in Maryland. [7]
While serving in the Navy medical corps for four years, Cosby worked in physical therapy with some seriously injured Korean War casualties, [7] which helped him discover what was important to him. He immediately realized the need for an education, and finished his equivalency diploma via correspondence courses. [8] He then won a track and field scholarship to Philadelphia's Temple University in 1961, [9] and studied physical education while running track and playing right halfback on the football team. However, he had continued to hone his talent for humor, joking with fellow enlistees in the service and then with college friends. When he began tending bar 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. [10]
Cosby left Temple as a sophomore to pursue a career in comedy. His parents were not pleased, but 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. Later, the university would grant him his bachelor's degree on the basis of "life experience." Cosby's career took off quickly, and 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, 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..... So I figure 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 costarred with Robert Culp in I Spy, an adventure show that reflected cold-war America's seemingly endless appetite for James Bond-style espionage fantasies. But Cosby's presence as the first black star of a dramatic television series made I Spy unique; 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 an Emmy award for outstanding actor in a dramatic series, as he would be again for the next two consecutive years. Although ostensibly focused on Culp's character, the show had clearly become a vehicle for his costar.
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 (he and wife Camille had two daughters by this time) and to return to live performing.
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, actively pursuing an advanced degree in education from the University of Massachusetts. 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, he was back in prime time, with a variety series, The New Bill Cosby Show, but 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 thesis on it in order to obtain his doctorate in Education in 1977.
Also during the 1970s, Cosby and other African American actors, including Sidney Poitier, joined forces to make some successful comedy films which 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 regular on children public programs starting in the 70's hosting the "Picture Pages" segments which lasted into the early 80s.
The Cosby Show and the 1980s
Cosby's greatest television success came in 1984 with the debut of The Cosby Show. For Cosby the new situation comedy was a response to the increasingly violent fare the networks usually offered. Cosby insisted on and got 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 familiar question of relevance came up again but was more or less drowned out by praise for the series. People magazine called the show "revolutionary," and Newsday concurred that it was a "real breakthrough." Cosby's formula for success, as had been the case throughout his career, was to appeal to the common humanity of his audience rather than to the racial differences that might divide it.
In the 1990s
After The Cosby Show went off the air in 1992, Cosby embarked on a number of other projects, including the ill-fated series I Spy Returns (1994) and The Cosby Mysteries (1996). He also made appearances in two more film flops, 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 costarring Phylicia Rashad, his onscreen wife on The Cosby Show (early on she replaced Telma Hopkins). 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. The late Madeline Kahn costarred as Rashad's goofy business partner. In addition, Cosby in 1998 became the host of Kids Say the Darndest Things. After four seasons, Cosby was cancelled. The last episode aired April 28, 2000. Cosby continued to work with CBS through a development deal and other projects.
His wellspring of creativity became manifest again with a series for preschoolers, Little Bill, which made its debut on Nickelodeon in 1999. The network renewed the popular program in November of 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 and at Ohio State University. Also that year he signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop a live-action feature film centering on the hilarious and popular Fat Albert character from his 1970s cartoon series. Fat Albert was released in theaters in December of 2004.
Personal life
Cosby met his wife, the former 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, Erinn Chalene, Ensa Camille, and Evin Harrah, and son Ennis William. Tragically, Ennis was killed on January 16, 1997, shot while changing a flat tire on the side of a Los Angeles freeway. In 1998, a jury found teenage gang member Mikail Markhasev guilty of the random crime. Around the same time, fans were startled when a 22-year-old woman, Autumn Jackson, tried to extort $40 million from Cosby, claiming he was her biological father. He admitted to having a one-time fling with Jackson's mother and had provided money to the family until Jackson turned 18, though he disputed the paternity claim from the start. She was found guilty of extortion and sentenced to 26 months in prison; two accomplices were sentenced to five years and three months. The convictions were overturned in June 1999 on a technicality. The case was retried later, and the convictions were returned.
Cosby, as of 2005, maintains a home in Shelburne, Massachusetts.
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