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Bill Cosby

Dr. William Henry "Bill" Cosby, Jr. (born July 12, 1937) is an American actor and comedian. He was the first black man to star in his own television series (I Spy with Robert Culp, in the mid-1960s), and also broke racial boundaries with his stand-up comedy career in the 1960s and 1970s. After I Spy, he starred in other series, but none were very successful (with the exception of the long-running cartoon Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids) until his sitcom, The Cosby Show in the mid-1980s. The Cosby Show was a runaway hit (rescuing NBC from possible bankruptcy), and notable for being one of the first to star a well-to-do middle-class Black family. During the 1980s, Cosby was among the highest-paid entertainers in the United States. Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at Northwest Philadelphia's Germantown Hospital at 3:00 A.M. He joined the Navy in tenth grade and completed high school through correspondence courses (GED). Later, he won an athletic scholarship to Temple University. After working as a bartender for several years, he began his career as a stand-up comic, winning fame for his performances and a series of record albums beginning in 1963. He won several Grammy awards for comedy albums, had a top forty song ("Little Old Man") in 1969, and sang on a number... Next

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