Bill Cosby was born July 12, 1937, in Philadelphia, PA. Cosby is a renowned comedian, actor, author, television producer, musician and activist. A veteran stand-up performer, he got his start at various clubs around the States.

He landed a starring role in the 1960′s action show I Spy with Robert Culp. He later starred in his own series, The Bill Cosby Show, in 1969. He was one of the major characters on the PBS television show The Electric Company and created the educational cartoon series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, about a group of young friends growing up “in the city.” Cosby has also acted in numerous films.

During the 80′s, Cosby produced and starred in what is considered one of that decade’s defining sitcoms, “The Cosby Show.” He also produced the hit sitcom A Different World, which became second to The Cosby Show in ratings at the time. In the 90′s, Cosby starred in “Cosby,” which aired from 1996 to 2000, and hosted “Kids Say the Darndest Things.”

Cosby still appears on the stand-up circuit.

As a child, Cosby was a “military brat” and self-described “class clown.” He later went on to serve in the US Navy, helping seriously injured Korean War casualties with physical therapy. This period of Cosby’s life helped him discover what was important to him.

Cosby won awards running on the Navy track team, but also experienced racial discrimination, being forced to eat in the kitchen of cafes where the team stopped to eat while on the road. He was honorably discharged after four years of service in 1960. After leaving the Navy, Cosby attended Temple University on the GI Bill. He has been a participant in, contributor to, and promoter of education for all ever since, receiving degrees from a number of colleges and universities.

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 has endorsed products including Jell-O Pudding Pops, Kodak Film, Ford, Texas Instruments and Coca-Cola (as well as the less-funny New Coca-Cola, which in this day and age probably would have been branded Coke 2.0 and been very successful with Britney’s and K-Fed’s because of its hipness and “viral synergies”).

In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Bill Cosby on his list of 100 Greatest African Americans.

During the early 1960′s, Cosby left Temple to pursue a career in his lifelong love (Comedy, The Art of). He received national exposure on The Tonight Show in 1963 and released “Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right!”, the first of a series of popular comedy long-player phonograph albums (aka “LP’s”) in 1964.

Cosby made his early comedy reputation with stories from his childhood. Some at the time 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 at times. His response is classic Cosby:

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.

In the mid-60′s, Cosby broke through TV’s “fourth wall” of race by becoming the first African-American to hold a starring role in a TV drama (I Spy with Robert Culp) and the first African-American to win an Emmy award.

After I Spy, Cosby went back to stand-up and recording albums (the aforementioned long-players). His recording legacy is impressive.

Over 40 years worth of recorded comedy. From one man. The one and only The Cos…

After the 1960′s, Cosby slacked off for awhile. Aside from recording some humorous ell-pees (the aforementioned “long playing phonograph recordings”), he pursued a variety of television projects: regular guest host on The Tonight Show, the star of an annual special for NBC, and another TV series (“The Bill Cosby Show”). He also returned to college, earned a degree from Temple, and began graduate work at the University of Massachusetts. That led to his involvement in the PBS series “The Electric Company,” for which he recorded several segments teaching reading skills to young children.

Cosby received a Masters degree from the University of Massachusetts and was also back in prime time with a variety series, “The New Bill Cosby Show.” He also started a Saturday morning show, “Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids,” hosted by Cosby and based on his own childhood.Schools across the country used the program as a teaching tool, and Cosby himself based his dissertation on the show and its use in educating young people.

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, Let’s Do It Again, Mother, Jugs & Speed (costarring Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel), A Piece of the Action and California Suite (a compilation of four Neil Simon plays)…Cosby and Poitier’s small band of actors played key roles in all of these movies.

Some of these movies gave roles to younger talents popular from the comedy clubs but that were yet to get the “big break” in Hollywood – talents such as Richard Pryor, Toni Basil, Dana Plato, Jimmy “JJ” Walker, and Janet DuBois.


So, after the vacation that was the 1970′s for Cosby, he then decided to kick things up yet another notch in the 1980′s with a little show you might have heard of…I forget the name of it…ah yes…The Cosby Show.

Much of the material from the pilot and first season of The Cosby Show was taken from the live recording “Bill Cosby: Himself” 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.”

In 1987, Cosby attempted to return to the big screen with the spy spoof Leonard Part 6. Unfortunately, he realized during production that the film was not going to be what he wanted and publicly denounced it, warning audiences to “stay away.” More power to him for having the guts to do that.

In the 1990′s and on into the 21st century, Cosby has continued to dabble in the fine art of comedy. 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. Cosby has often cited Groucho as one of the most significant people in his early comedic development.

1994 saw Cos on the small screen in the TV-movie “I Spy Returns” and “The Cosby Mysteries” (think Murder, He Laughed with Cosby instead of Angela Lansbury in the lead – good stuff!). In the mid-1990s, he appeared film noir-themed commercials for Turner Classic Movies. In ’96 he began a new series for CBS, “Cosby,” co-starring Phylicia Rashad, his onscreen wife on The Cosby Show. It centered on Cosby as Hilton Lucas, a senior citizen who tries to find a new job after being laid-off from his job. Madeline Kahn also costarred.

A Cosby-led series for preschoolers, “Little Bill,” made its debut on Nickelodeon in 1999. He signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop a live-action feature film of Fat Albert which featured a live-action fat comic (Kenan Thompson, who is very funny; I think he wore padding during the filming of Fat Albert to actually look fat).

For over two decades Bill Cosby has also been a published author, producing a number of essays, commencement speeches, and books, including:

  • Fatherhood (1986)
  • Time Flies (1987)
  • Love and Marriage (1989)
  • Childhood (1991)
  • Kids Say the Darndest Things(1998)
  • Congratulations! Now What? A Book for Graduates(1999)
  • American Schools: The 100 Billion Dollar Challenge (2000)
  • Cosbyology: Essays and Observations from the Doctor of Comedy (2001)
  • I Am What I Ate…and I’m frightened!!!: And Other Digressions from the Doctor of Comedy
    (2003)
  • Friends of a Feather: One of Life’s Little Fables(2003)
  • Come On People: On the Path from Victims to Victors
    (2007)

    • Doctor William Henry Cosby Junior is truly one of the greatest comedians of all time. Professor Cosby – thank you for the laughs…and for making us think…

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