Comedian, actor. Born William Henry Cosby on July 12, 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 featuring Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Jimmy Durante, and Fred Allen. 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. In 1956, he enlisted in the Navy. 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. 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.

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.

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. He appeared in Disney's The Devil and Max Devlin and was featured in the in-concert film Bill CosbyÑHimself. He also worked as a guest host for the Tonight Show.

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 and portrayed African Americans and parents as they had never been seen on television before. 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. 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.

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). He also starred in a few critically panned films, Leonard Part VI (1987) and Ghost Dad (1990).

Not one to rest on his laurels, after The Cosby Show ended, Cosby returned to television with a syndicated version of the old Groucho Marx game show You Bet Your Life, which 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 shortlived The Cosby Mysteries series.

Undaunted by the failure of The Cosby Mysteries, Cosby returned to primetime television in 1996 with a new sitcom entitled Cosby. The show focuses on 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 was arrested in New York City by the FBI and 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. He 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 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.

Cosby has continued to speak out against the generally poor quality of television programming. Although he has always avoided racial humor in his comedy, he 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." 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.