Bill Cosby

AKA William Henry Cosby, Jr.

Born: 12-Jul-1937

Birthplace: Philadelphia, PA



Gender: Male

Race or Ethnicity: Black

Sexual orientation: Straight

Occupation: Comic, Actor

Party Affiliation: Democratic

Nationality: United States

Executive summary: Comedy fixture, accused rapist

Military service: US Navy (1956-60)

More than fifty women, including models Janice Dickinson and Beverly Johnson, have made allegations of rape or sexual assault against comedian and actor Bill Cosby, though he was never charged until 2015. One woman's lawsuit alleging battery, assault, and intentional infliction of emotional distress was settled by Cosby's payment of an undisclosed sum in 2006.

In the transcript from Cosby's deposition in that case -- kept secret until it was obtained and published by the New York Times in 2015 -- Cosby said that he had given the plaintiff one and a half tablets of Benadryl to relieve her stress, and they subsequently had sexual contact; the purported victim said that she believed she had been given a much more powerful drug instead, rendering her unable to consent. In the same deposition, Cosby described repeatedly using powerful sedatives in the sexual pursuit of other young women, casually bragged about luring multiple women with promises of show-business mentorship, said he had paid one women after having sex with her to keep her from telling his wife, and admitted seducing another woman by feigning concern about her father's cancer.

In 1997, another woman was arrested for trying to extort $40 million from Cosby, claiming he was her father. It turned out Cosby had indeed had an affair with the woman's mother many years earlier, but paternity tests established that Cosby was not her father. Through all this and much more, Cosby has presented himself publicly as a man happily married since the 1960s. He has also become known for dispensing character guidance in books, interviews, and speeches. In 2004, Cosby made headlines with blunt public statements about the problems facing blacks in America today, comments that drew criticism from some black leaders, and profuse praise from others.

On black parents: "[The previous generation] marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around. The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal. These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids -- $500 sneakers for what? And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics. I can't even talk the way these people talk: 'Why you ain't,' 'Where you is'... You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth!"

On black crime: "These are not political criminals. These are people going around stealing Coca-Cola. People getting shot in the back of the head over a piece of pound cake, and then we run out and we are outraged, saying 'The cops shouldn't have shot him.' What the hell was he doing with the pound cake in his hand?"

But before his name became synonymous with sexual assault, sordid scandals, and public posturing as a moral leader, Cosby was considered an icon of wholesome, family-friendly comedy. He had been on television for so long, usually in rather silly sitcoms or commercials for Jello, it was easy to forget that he used to be funny -- and hip. In the 1960s and early 70s, school kids of any color could recite material they had heard on Cosby's best-selling comedy albums.

As a teenager, he dropped out of high school to go into the Navy. After his tour of duty, he earned his equivalency diploma through a correspondence course, and his quick legs got him into Temple University on a track-and-field scholarship when he was 23, but dropped out to pursue show business. His early stand-up started with nightclub routines about "Fat Albert" and "Old Weird Harold". The albums led to several hot-selling comedy albums in the 1960s, and appearances on all the prime time variety shows (Dean Martin, Andy Williams, etc.) and Johnny Carson's Tonight Show.

Cosby had never worked as an actor, but NBC brass noticed that his appeal was broader than just black and white. So Cosby was hired to play a smart, sexy spy opposite Robert Culp in the mid-1960s adventure show I Spy. Running for three seasons, it was enjoyable entertainment, but it was also an important breakthrough -- no black man had ever starred in an American TV show before. And the few blacks who had been seen on television were usually butlers or bumbling bus drivers. Cosby's character, by contrast, was a Rhodes scholar, and Culp's equal partner in espionage.

After I Spy ended, Cosby starred as a gym teacher in his first sitcom, The Bill Cosby Show, then hosted his own The New Bill Cosby Show variety hour, and later a sketch comedy show called Cos. His cartoon series, Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids, ran from 1972-80, and has aired in reruns ever since. The 1970s also saw Cosby's only success on the big screen, starring with Sidney Poitier and Harry Belafonte in Uptown Saturday Night; with Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel in Mother, Jugs, and Speed; and with Richard Pryor in California Suite. Since then, virtually every movie project Cosby has starred in has been a failure.

But Cosby didn't need movies to remain a star. In the 1980s, he starred in The Cosby Show, a wildly popular sitcom with Cosby as a doctor and Phylicia Rashad as his wife, a lawyer. In its second season, episodes of The Cosby Show accounted for 13 of the year's 15 highest rated TV programs. The show was funny, the kids were cute, and the plots contained no sex, swearing, or even hints of vulgarity. The series, though, was eventually criticized for its upper-class setting and its distance from the real problems faced by real blacks. In the late 1990s, Cosby and Rashad reteamed for another sitcom, Cosby, which wasn't nearly as funny or popular.

Cosby has given many millions of dollars to everything from political candidates to underwriting Spike Lee's film Malcolm X when the studio balked at cost overages. He has also written several folksy books of humorous but good advice, including Fatherhood, Love and Marriage, and Time Flies. As far back as 1971, Cosby was urging kids to say no to drugs. He recorded an album in 1971 called "Cosby Talks to Kids about Drugs", ending with the solid if unremarkable advice that "the time spent acquiring a drug habit and kicking it is time you could have used to educate yourself".

His success as an entertainer made a degree seem superfluous, but Cosby returned to college in the 1970s, earning three degrees. For his doctorate in education, his dissertation was titled, "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".

Over the decades, Cosby has never been one to shy away from a paycheck for his celebrity endorsement. He has pitched Jello, Kodak, Del Monte, Ford Motor Company, and numerous other products. He became so publicly linked to his Coca-Cola endorsements, he was able to take his payment in part ownership of the company.

In 1996, Cosby was booked to perform his comedy act at the "Inaugural World Convention of the Family Federation for World Peace", only finding out hours before his appearance that the group was affiliated with the lunatic Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. When threatened with lawsuits if he backed out, Cosby performed a perfunctory 16-minute set without smiling once. Meanwhile the event's other well-paid speakers, Former President Gerald Ford, Former U.K. Prime Minster Edward Heath and Former Canadian PM Brian Mulroney, took their checks and posed politely for pictures with Moon.

Cosby's son, Ennis, was a 27-year-old doctoral student at Columbia University when he was shot and killed while changing the tire on his Mercedes. The killer, Mikhail Markhasev, is serving a life sentence, after Cosby spoke against giving him the death penalty.

Father: William H. Cosby (US Navy, mess steward)

Mother: Anna Cosby (d. 1991)

Brother: Russell Cosby

Brother: Robert Cosby

Brother: James Cosby (b. 1941, d. 1947, rheumatic fever)

Wife: Camille Olivia (Hanks) Cosby (m. 25-Jan-1964, five children)

Daughter: Erika Ranee (b. 1965)

Daughter: Erinn Charlene (b. 1967)

Son: Ennis William Cosby (b. 1969, d. 16-Jan-1997 murder)

Daughter: Ensa Camille (b. 1973)

Daughter: Evin Harrah (b. 1977)

Mistress: Shawn Upshaw (1974)



High School: Peddie School, Hightstown, NJ

University: BA Radio/TV/Film, Temple University

University: MA Education, University of Massachusetts (1972)

University: Ed.D., University of Massachusetts (1977)

Trustee: Temple University (1982-2014)



Endorsement of Coca-Cola

Endorsement of E. F. Hutton

Endorsement of Kraft Foods Jell-O

Endorsement of Kodak

Endorsement of Service Merchandise

Endorsement of Texas Instruments TI Home Computer (1983)

Endorsement of Walt Disney World

Sexual Assault Montgomery County, PA ("Aggravated indecent assault"; charged 30-Dec-2015)

Emmy (multiple)

Grammy (multiple)

Spingarn Medal 1985

Kennedy Center Honor 1998

Library of Congress Living Legend 2000

Presidential Medal of Freedom 9-Jul-2002

Grand Marshal of the Tournament of Roses 2003 (shared)

Hollywood Walk of Fame 6930 Hollywood Blvd (television)

National Leadership PAC

Omega Psi Phi Fraternity

Tonsillectomy

Funeral: Martin Luther King (1968)

Risk Factors: Smoking



SPORTS FRANCHISE HISTORY

Harlem Globetrotters lifetime contract (1972)



TELEVISION

Cosby Hilton Lucas (1996-2000)

A Different World Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable (1987)

The Cosby Show Cliff Huxtable (1984-92)

The Electric Company Various (1971-73)

The Bill Cosby Show Chet Kincaid (1969-71)

I Spy Alexander Scott (1965-68)



FILMOGRAPHY AS DIRECTOR

Bill Cosby, Himself (20-May-1983)



FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR

Keep On Keepin' On (19-Apr-2014) · Himself

Fat Albert (12-Dec-2004) · Himself

Lightning in a Bottle (12-Feb-2004) · Himself

Comedian (11-Oct-2002)

4 Little Girls (9-Jul-1997) · Himself

Jack (9-Aug-1996) · Lawrence Woodruff

The Meteor Man (6-Aug-1993)

Ghost Dad (29-Jun-1990)

Leonard Part 6 (18-Dec-1987)

Bill Cosby, Himself (20-May-1983) · Himself

The Devil and Max Devlin (6-Mar-1981) · Barney Satin

California Suite (15-Dec-1978) · Dr. Willis Panama

A Piece of the Action (7-Oct-1977)

Mother, Jugs & Speed (26-May-1976)

Let's Do It Again (11-Oct-1975)

Journey Back to Oz (5-Dec-1974)

Uptown Saturday Night (26-Jul-1974)

Hickey & Boggs (20-Dec-1972)

To All My Friends on Shore (25-Feb-1972)

Man and Boy (23-Jun-1971)

King: A Filmed Record... Montgomery to Memphis (24-Mar-1970) · Himself



Official Website:

http://www.billcosby.com/





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