American former comedian, actor, author, director, and producer Bill Cosby was known for his performances in film, television, and stand-up comedy, and is perhaps most famous for his portrayal of the family patriarch Dr. Cliff Huxtable in the sitcom The Cosby Show (1984-1992).
He started his career as a standup comedian performing on television shows, night clubs and releasing many comedy albums. He got his start on television in the drama series I Spy (1965-1968) with Robert Culp. He then starred in The Bill Cosby Show, (1969-1971), The New Bill Cosby Show (1972-1973), The Electric Company (1971-1973), and Cosby (1996-2000). He created, and voiced characters in the animated television projects Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert (1969), and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1972-1985). Cosby produced the spin-off sitcom A Different World , which aired from 1987 to 1993. He starred in The Cosby Mysteries from 1994 to 1995 and hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things from 1998 to 2000. he also hosted the TV special Sesame Street... 20 Years & Still Counting from 1989.
He made his film debut in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice (1969) before starring opposite Robert Culp in Hickey & Boggs (1972). He then starred in Sidney Poitier's comedies Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and Let's Do it Again (1975). He then starred in the Peter Yates directed comedy Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976) alongside Raquel Welsh and Harvey Keitel and the Neil Simon ensemble comedy California Suite (1978) opposite Richard Pryor. He then wrote, produced and starred in the critically panned and box office bomb Leonard Part 6 (1987). He reunited with Poitier in Ghost Dad (1990), and appeared in minor roles in The Meteor Man (1993), Jack (1996), and Fat Albert (2004).
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1968 | Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed | Himself | Documentary |
1969 | Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice | Patron at Nightclub | Uncredited[ citation needed ] |
1971 | Man and Boy | Caleb Revers | |
1971 | Aesop's Fables | Aesop | |
1972 | Hickey & Boggs | Al Hickey | |
1974 | Uptown Saturday Night | Wardell Franklin | |
1975 | Let's Do It Again | Billy Foster | |
1976 | Mother, Jugs & Speed | Mother | |
1977 | A Piece of the Action | Dave Anderson | |
1978 | California Suite | Dr. Willis Panama | |
1981 | The Devil and Max Devlin | Barney Satin | |
1983 | Bill Cosby: Himself | Himself | |
1987 | Bill Cosby: 49 | ||
1987 | Leonard Part 6 | Leonard Parker | Also producer and story writer |
1990 | Ghost Dad | Elliot Hopper | |
1993 | The Meteor Man | Marvin | |
1996 | Jack | Lawrence Woodruff | |
2002 | Comedian | Himself | Documentary |
2003 | Baadasssss! | ||
2004 | Fat Albert | Also executive producer and writer |
Sources: Turner Classic Movies and Internet Movie Database [1] [2]
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1965–1968 | I Spy | Alexander Scott | Main role (82 episodes) |
1969 | Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert | Bill/Fat Albert/Dumb Donald/Mushmouth | Voice; Movie; also writer |
1969–1971 | The Bill Cosby Show | Chet Kincaid | Lead role (52 episodes); also executive producer |
1970–1972 | Sesame Street | Himself | 11 episodes |
1971–1973 | The Electric Company | Hank | 260 episodes |
1972 | The New Bill Cosby Show | Himself/host | |
1972–1985 | Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids | Bill/Fat" Albert Jackson/Mushmouth/Brown Hornet Himself/host | Voice; Main role (34 episodes); also the creator |
1972 | To All My Friends on Shore | Blue | Movie |
1974 | Journey Back to Oz | The Wizard of Oz | TV version |
1975 | Cher | Doctor | Accompanied by sweetums |
1976 | Cos | Himself/host | Series |
1977–1990 | Pinwheel | Himself | Host of the Picture Pages segment |
1978 | Top Secret | Aaron Strickland | Movie |
1984–1992 | The Cosby Show | Dr. Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable | Main role (197 episodes); also creator and theme music composer |
1987 | A Different World | 3 episodes; also creator and theme music composer | |
1989 | Sesame Street... 20 Years & Still Counting | Himself/host | TV special |
1992–1993 | You Bet Your Life | Game show; also theme music composer | |
1994–1995 | The Cosby Mysteries | Guy Hanks | Lead role (18 episodes) |
1994 | I Spy Returns | Alexander Scott | Movie |
1996–2000 | Cosby | Hilton Lucas | Main role (95 episodes); also exec. producer and theme music composer |
1998–2000 | Kids Say the Darndest Things | Himself/host | |
1999–2004 | Little Bill | Himself/Captain Brainstorm (voice) | Also exec. producer, writer and theme music composer |
2004 | Sesame Street | Himself | Episode: 4071 |
2010–2012 | OBKB | 33 episodes; also executive producer | |
2013 | Far From Finished | ||
2014 | Bill Cosby: 77 | Release cancelled |
Sources: Internet Movie Database
William Henry Cosby Jr. is an American former comedian, actor, spokesman, and media personality. Cosby gained a reputation as "America's Dad" for his portrayal of Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show (1984–1992). He has received numerous awards and honorary degrees throughout his career, though many of them were revoked following sexual assault allegations made against him in 2014.
Michael J. Pollard was an American actor. He is best known for his role as C.W. Moss in the film Bonnie and Clyde (1967), which earned him critical acclaim along with nominations for an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Golden Globe Awards.
Phil Silvers was an American entertainer and comedic actor, known as "The King of Chutzpah". His career as a professional entertainer spanned nearly 60 years. He achieved major popularity when he starred in The Phil Silvers Show, a 1950s sitcom set on a U.S. Army post in which he played Master Sergeant Ernest (Ernie) Bilko. He also starred in the films It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963) and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966). He was a winner of two Primetime Emmy Awards for his work on The Phil Silvers Show and two Tony Awards for his performances in Top Banana and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He also wrote the original lyrics to the jazz standard "Nancy ".
Robert Klein is an American stand-up comedian, singer, and actor. He is known for his appearances on stage and screen. He has released four standup comedy albums: A Child of the 50s (1973), Mind Over Matter (1974), New Teeth (1975), and Let's Not Make Love (1990). The first two albums received Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album nominations. Klein hosted Saturday Night Live in its first season in 1975 and again in 1978. Klein made his Broadway debut in the 1966 production of The Apple Tree opposite Alan Alda. He earned a Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical nomination for his performance in Neil Simon's musical comedy They're Playing Our Song (1979). He also starred on his own show that aired on the cable network USA called Robert Klein Time in the mid 80s(1986-88).
Damon Kyle Wayans Sr. is an American stand-up comedian, actor, producer, and writer. He performed as a comedian and actor throughout the 1980s, including a year-long stint on the NBC sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live. He later became a writer and performer on Fox's sketch comedy show In Living Color (1990-1992), on his animated series Waynehead (1996-1997) and on his TV series Damon (1998). Since then, he has starred in a number of films and television shows, some of which he has co-produced or co-written, including Beverly Hills Cop, Mo Money, The Last Boy Scout, Major Payne, Bulletproof, and the sitcom My Wife and Kids. From 2016 to 2019, he starred as Roger Murtaugh in the Fox television series Lethal Weapon. He is a member of the Wayans family of entertainers.
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids is an American animated television series created, produced, and hosted by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to a number of characters, including Fat Albert himself. Filmation was the production company for the series. The show premiered in 1972 and aired until 1985. The show, based on Cosby's remembrances of his childhood gang, focused on Fat Albert, and his friends.
Robert Martin Culp was an American actor and screenwriter widely known for his work in television. Culp earned an international reputation for his role as Kelly Robinson on I Spy (1965–1968), the espionage television series in which co-star Bill Cosby and he played secret agents. Before this, he starred in the CBS/Four Star Western series Trackdown as Texas Ranger Hoby Gilman in 71 episodes from 1957 to 1959. The 1980s brought him back to television as FBI Agent Bill Maxwell on The Greatest American Hero. Later, he had a recurring role as Warren Whelan on Everybody Loves Raymond, and was a voice actor for various computer games, including Half-Life 2. Culp gave hundreds of performances in a career spanning more than 50 years.
Richard Samuel Benjamin is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of well-known films, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), Catch-22 (1970), Portnoy's Complaint (1972), Westworld (1973), The Last of Sheila (1973), and The Sunshine Boys (1975), for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture. Benjamin was nominated for an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Comedy Series for his performances in He & She (1968), opposite his wife Paula Prentiss.
Fat Albert is a 2004 American live-action/animated comedy film based on the 1972 Filmation animated television series Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids created by Bill Cosby. Kenan Thompson stars as the title character. Fat Albert transforms the cartoon characters into three-dimensional humans, who have to come to grips with the differences that exist between their world and the real world.
Doug E. Doug is an American actor. He started his career at age 17 as a stand-up comedian. He played the role of Griffin Vesey on the CBS sitcom Cosby, Sanka Coffie in the film Cool Runnings, and the voice of Bernie in the animated film Shark Tale.
Walter Clarence "Dub" Taylor Jr., was an American character actor who from the 1940s into the 1990s worked extensively in films and on television, often in Westerns but also in comedies. He is the father of actor and painter Buck Taylor.
Sheldon Leonard Bershad was an American film and television actor, producer, director, and screenwriter.
The Bill Cosby Show is an American sitcom television series that aired for two seasons on NBC's Sunday night schedule from 1969 until 1971 under the sponsorship of Procter & Gamble. There were 52 episodes made in the series. It marked Bill Cosby's first solo foray in television after his co-starring role with Robert Culp in I Spy.
Jack Weston was an American actor. He was nominated for a Golden Globe Award in 1976 and a Tony Award in 1981.
Uptown Saturday Night is a 1974 American action comedy and crime comedy film, written by Richard Wesley and directed by and starring Sidney Poitier, with Bill Cosby and Harry Belafonte co-starring. Cosby and Poitier teamed up again for Let's Do It Again (1975) and A Piece of the Action (1977). Although Cosby's and Poitier's characters have different names in each film, the three films are considered to be a trilogy. Uptown Saturday Night premiered on June 15, 1974 at the Criterion Theatre in New York and opened to positive reviews.
Bill Cosby: Himself is a 1983 comedy film featuring American stand-up comedian Bill Cosby. Filmed before a live audience at Hamilton Place, in Hamilton, Ontario in 1981, Cosby gives the audience his views ranging from marriage to parenthood. The film also showcases Cosby's conversational style of stand-up comedy. For most of the performance, Cosby is seated center-stage, only getting up to emphasize a joke.
Revenge (1967) is the fifth album by comedian Bill Cosby. It was recorded live at Harrah's, Lake Tahoe, Nevada by Warner Bros. Records. It won the 1968 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album. It also hit #1 on the Billboard R&B chart and #2 on the magazine's Pop album chart.
Let's Do It Again is a 1975 American action crime comedy film, starring Sidney Poitier and co-starring Bill Cosby and Jimmie Walker among an all-star black cast. The film, directed by Poitier, is about blue-collar workers who decide to rig a boxing match to raise money for their fraternal lodge. The song of the same name by The Staple Singers was featured as the opening and ending theme of the film, and as a result, the two have become commonly associated with each other. The production companies include Verdon Productions and The First Artists Production Company, Ltd., and distributed by Warner Bros. The movie was filmed in two cities, Atlanta, Georgia and New Orleans, Louisiana, where most of the plot takes place. This was the second film pairing of Poitier and Cosby following Uptown Saturday Night, and followed by A Piece of the Action (1977). Of the three, Let's Do It Again has been the most successful both critically and commercially. Calvin Lockhart and Lee Chamberlin also appeared in Uptown Saturday Night. According to the American Film Institute, Let's Do It Again is not a sequel to Uptown Saturday Night.
David Adkins, better known by his stage name Sinbad, is an American stand-up comedian and actor. He became known in the 1990s from being featured on his own HBO specials, appearing on several television series, most notably as Coach Walter Oakes in A Different World (1987–1991) and as David Bryan on The Sinbad Show (1993–1994). He has also appeared in films such as That's Adequate (1989), Coneheads (1993), Houseguest (1995), Jingle All the Way (1996), Crazy as Hell (2002) and Planes (2013).
Hey, Hey, Hey, It's Fat Albert is an animated primetime television special which originally aired on November 12, 1969, on NBC in the United States.