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Dr. William Henry Cosby, Jr., (born July 12, 1937) is an African American actor and comedian. His sitcom, The Cosby Show was very successful, and notable for being one of the first to star a well-to-do middle-class African-American family. At one time, he was one of the most highly paid entertainers in the United States.
Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He joined the United States Navy in tenth grade and completed high school through correspondence courses. 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, and was discovered by Carl Reiner, who landed Cosby a break-out television role in I Spy ( 1965). Cosby won two Emmy AwardThe Emmy Awards are United States television production awards, similar to the Peabody Awards but more focused on entertainment. There are two types of Emmy Awards, the Daytime Awards and the Primetime Awards. The National Academy of Television Arts & Scis for his portrayal of an undercover CIAThis article is about the foreign intelligence service of the United States of America. For other uses of the term CIA see CIA (disambiguation . The Central Intelligence Agency CIA is the United States' foreign intelligence agency, responsible for obtaini agent; it was also the first time an African-American actor starred in a weekly dramatic television series.
Cosby then appeared in a series of shows named after himself: The Bill Cosby Show, The New Bill Cosby Show, the animated Fat Albert and the Cosby KidsFat Albert and the Cosby Kids was an animated series conceived of and produced by comedian Bill Cosby, who also lent his voice to the title character, Fat Albert. The series, based upon Cosby's stories about growing up in the inner city of Philadelphia, r, Cos, The Cosby Show, The Cosby Mysteries, and Cosby (see One Foot In The Grave). He has producer, writer, director and even composer credits on many of his projects.
Bill Cosby was a regular on the Captain KangarooCaptain Kangaroo was a children's show which aired weekday mornings on CBS from 1955 until 1984, then moved to PBS until 1992. The show was produced and the title character played by the late Bob Keeshan, who based the show on "the warm relationship betwe show in the 1980s, presenting the "Picture Pages" segment.
He won several Grammy awards for comedy albums, had a top forty song ("Little Old Man") in 1969For other uses, see Number 1969. For the movie, see 1969 (movie). Events January January 1 Australian media baron Rupert Murdoch purchases the largest selling British Sunday newspaper The News Of The World January 5 The Derry Riots leave over 100 people i, and sang on a number of albums. He has also written several humorous books about different aspects of life, based on his stand-up comedy such as Fatherhood and Love and Marriage. In fact, Fatherhood and Time Flies were the best selling non-fiction hardback books of 1986 and 1987, respectively. Despite his success in other media, Cosby's film acting career has been characterized by mediocre projects such as Leonard Part 6 ( 1987) and Ghost Dad ( 1990).
Cosby earned a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts in 1977: his thesis concerned the use of the Fat Albert series as a teaching aid. He has attempted to integrate education with television in some projects, such as Picture Pages, where Cosby taught children how to draw in a series of shorts aired by PBS. He is now a leading educational philanthropist.
He is married to Camille Hanks and they have four daughters. Their only son Ennis Cosby, aged 27, was murdered on January 16, 1997, while changing a flat tire in Los Angeles, California. On March 12, 1997 Mikail Markhasev was arrested in Los Angeles and charged with the attempted robbery and shooting of Ennis.
Cosby received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002.