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| “ | I have eight years and nine months left. When I come up for parole, they're not going to hear me say that I have remorse. | „ |
| ~ Cosby in an interview in 2019. |
Bill Cosby (b. July 12, 1937) is an disgraced American former stand-up comedian, actor, musician and author who is considered to be one of the most recognizable and influential comedians of all-time. Beginning in the 1980s, Cosby produced and starred in the television sitcom The Cosby Show, which aired from 1984 to 1992 and was rated as the number one show in America from 1985 through 1989. The sitcom highlighted the experiences and growth of an affluent African-American family. Cosby produced the spin-off sitcom A Different World, which aired from 1987 to 1993. He also starred in The Cosby Mysteries from 1994 to 1995 and in the sitcom Cosby from 1996 to 2000 and hosted Kids Say the Darndest Things from 1998 to 2000. He also created the children's cartoons Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and Little Bill and was a starring cast member on the PBS show The Electric Company from 1971 to 1973.
Cosby's reputation was tarnished during the mid-2010s when numerous women made sexual assault accusations against him, the earliest dating back to 1965. In totally 60 women have accused him of either attempted sexual assault, rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, or sexual misconduct, all of which he has denied, and the statute of limitations had by the mid-2010s expired in nearly all cases.
Cosby was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault and sentenced to three to ten years in prison in September 2018. He was incarcerated at the State Correctional Institution – Phoenix in Pennsylvania. On June 30, 2021, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court overturned the charges against him due to an agreement with a prosecutor and he was released from prison.
Early life edit
Cosby was born on July 12, 1937, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is one of four sons of Anna Pearl (née Hite), a maid, and William Henry Cosby Sr., who served as a mess steward in the U.S. Navy.
Cosby was the class president as well as captain of both the baseball and track and field teams at Mary Channing Wister Public School in Philadelphia. Teachers noted his propensity for joking around instead of studying, and he described himself as the class clown. At FitzSimons Junior High School, Cosby acted in plays and continued to compete in sports.[citation needed] Cosby attended Philadelphia's Central High School, a magnet school and academically rigorous college prep school, where he ran track and played baseball, football, and basketball.[citation needed] He transferred to Germantown High School but failed the tenth grade.
In 1956, Cosby enlisted in the Navy and served as a hospital corpsman at the Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia; at Naval Station Argentia in Newfoundland, Canada; and at the National Naval Medical Center in Maryland. He worked in physical therapy with Navy and Marine Corps personnel who were injured during the Korean War. He served until 1960 and became a petty officer 3rd class. Cosby as a basketball player during his Navy service in 1957 Cosby earned his high school equivalency diploma through correspondence courses and was awarded a track and field scholarship to Temple University in 1961. At Temple, he studied physical education while he ran track and played fullback on the college's football team. He began bartending at a Philadelphia club, where he earned bigger tips by making the customers laugh. He then began performing on stage, and left his university studies to pursue a career in comedy.
Stand-up career edit
Cosby lined up stand-up jobs at clubs in Philadelphia and then in New York City, where he appeared at The Gaslight Cafe beginning in 1961. He booked dates in cities such as Chicago, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. In the summer of 1963, he received national exposure on NBC's The Tonight Show. This led to a recording contract with Warner Bros. Records which, in 1964, released his debut LP, Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow...Right!, the first of a series of comedy albums. His album To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With was number one on Spin magazine's list of "The 40 Greatest Comedy Albums of All Time", calling it "stand-up comedy's masterpiece".
While many comics of the time were using the growing freedom of that decade to explore controversial and sometimes risqué material, Cosby was making his reputation with humorous recollections of his childhood. Many Americans 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 regularly; as he argued, "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 1983, Cosby released the concert film Bill Cosby: Himself which is widely regarded as "the greatest comedy concert film ever". Younger, well-established comics like Jerry Seinfeld have credited Cosby as an innovator both as a practitioner of stand-up comedy, as well as a person who paved the way for comics to break into sitcom television. Seinfeld said of Cosby: "He opened a door for all of us, for all of the networks to even consider that this was a way to create a character, was to take someone who can hold an audience just by being up there and telling their story. He created that. He created the whole idea of taking a quote-unquote 'comic' and developing a TV show just from a persona that you see on stage." Comedian Larry Wilmore also saw a connection between Bill Cosby: Himself and the later success of The Cosby Show, saying: "It's clear that the concert is the template for The Cosby Show."
Cosby performed his first TV stand-up special in 30 years, Bill Cosby: Far from Finished, on Comedy Central on November 23, 2013. His last show of the "Far from Finished" tour was performed at the Cobb Energy Performing Arts Centre in Atlanta, Georgia on May 2, 2015. In 2014, Cosby was set to release his new standup special Bill Cosby 77 on Netflix. The release of the film was canceled due to allegations of sexual assault against Cosby.
His last known standup performance prior to his conviction was held at the LaRose Jazz Club in Philadelphia on January 23, 2018.
Career and further education edit
1960s: I Spy edit
In 1965, Cosby was cast alongside Robert Culp in the I Spy espionage adventure series on NBC. I Spy became the first weekly dramatic television series to feature an African-American in a starring role. At first, Cosby and NBC executives were concerned that some affiliates might be unwilling to carry the series. At the beginning of the 1965 season, four stations declined the show; they were in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. Viewers were taken with the show's exotic locales and the authentic chemistry between the stars. It became one of the ratings hits of the season. I Spy finished among the twenty most-watched shows that year, and Cosby was honored with three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. When accepting his third Emmy for the show, Cosby told the audience: "Let the message be known to bigots and racists that they don't count!"
During the series' run, Cosby continued to do stand-up comedy performances and recorded half a dozen record albums for Warner Bros. Records. He also began to dabble in singing, recording Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings in 1967. In June 1968, Billboard magazine reported that Cosby had turned down a five-year, $3.5 million contract renewal offer and would leave the label in August that year to record for his own record label.
In July 1968, Cosby narrated Black History: Lost, Stolen, or Strayed, a CBS documentary addressing the representation of black people in popular culture. Andy Rooney wrote the Emmy-awarded script for Cosby to read. Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson said it was one of "the rare exceptions when Cosby took off the gloves and blinders, to discuss race in public with candor and discernment". Due to its popularity and controversial nature, it was rebroadcast less than a month later.
Tetragrammaton Records, a division of the Campbell, Silver, Cosby (CSC) Corporation—the Los Angeles–based production company founded by Cosby, his manager Roy Silver, and filmmaker Bruce Post Campbell—produced films as well as records, including Cosby's television specials, the Fat Albert cartoon special and series, and several motion pictures. CSC hired Artie Mogull as President of the label. Tetragrammaton was fairly active during 1968–69 (its most successful signing was British rock band Deep Purple) but it quickly went into the red and ceased trading during the 1970s.
1970s: Fat Albert edit
Cosby pursued a variety of additional television projects and appeared as a regular guest host on The Tonight Show and as the star of an annual special for NBC. In 1969, he returned with another series, The Bill Cosby Show, a situation comedy that ran for two seasons. Cosby played a physical education teacher at a Los Angeles high school. While only a modest critical success, the show was a ratings hit, finishing eleventh in its first season. Cosby was lauded for using African-American performers such as Lillian Randolph, Moms Mabley, and Rex Ingram as characters. According to commentary on the Season 1 DVDs for the show, Cosby was at odds with NBC over his refusal to include a laugh track in the show, as he felt viewers had the ability to find humor for themselves when watching a TV show.[citation needed]
After The Bill Cosby Show left the air, Cosby resumed his formal education. He began graduate work at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. For the PBS series The Electric Company, Cosby recorded several segments teaching reading skills to young children.
In 1972, he received a Master of Arts (M.A.) from UMass Amherst and was also back in prime time with a variety series, The New Bill Cosby Show. However, this show lasted only a season. More successful was a Saturday-morning cartoon, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, hosted by Cosby and based on his own childhood. That series ran from 1972 to 1979, then ran as The New Fat Albert Show in 1979, and finally ran as The Adventures of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. In 1976, Cosby earned a Doctor of Education (EdD) from UMass; 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". Subsequently, Temple University granted him his bachelor's degree on the basis of what it referred to as life experience.
During the 1970s, Cosby and other African-American actors, including Sidney Poitier, joined forces to make successful comedy films to counter the violent "blaxploitation" films of the era, such as Uptown Saturday Night in 1974; Let's Do It Again in 1975; and in 1976, Mother, Jugs & Speed, co-starring Raquel Welch and Harvey Keitel.
In 1976, Cosby starred in A Piece of the Action with Poitier; and California Suite, a compilation of four Neil Simon plays. He also hosted Cos in 1976. In addition, he produced an hour-long variety show featuring puppets, sketches, and musical numbers. It was during this season that ABC decided to take advantage of this phase of Cosby's career, by joining with Filmation producers of Fat Albert to create live-action segments starring Cosby, for the 1972 animated film Journey Back to Oz; it subsequently aired in syndication. Cosby was also a regular on children's public television programs starting in the 1970s, hosting the "Picture Pages" segments that lasted into the early 1980s.
1980s: The Cosby Show edit
Main articles: The Cosby Show and Bill Cosby in advertising
Cosby's greatest television success came in September 1984 with the debut of The Cosby Show. Cosby, an advocate for family-oriented humor, co-produced the series, held creative control and involved himself in every aspect of production. Plots were often based on ideas that Cosby suggested while in meetings with the writing staff. The show had parallels to Cosby's actual family life: like the characters Cliff and Clair Huxtable, Cosby and his wife Camille were college-educated and financially successful, and they had five children. On the show, Cosby played the role of an obstetrician. Much of the material from the pilot and first season of The Cosby Show was taken from his video Bill Cosby: Himself,[citation needed] released in 1983. The series was an immediate success, debuting near the top of the ratings and staying there for most of its eight-season run.[citation needed]
In 1987, Cosby attempted to return to film with the spy spoof Leonard Part 6. Although Cosby himself was the producer and wrote the story, he realized during production that the film was not going to be what he wanted and publicly denounced it, warning audiences to stay away. The film was however marked the first project for Columbia to be greenlighted by studio executive David Puttman. Later in the 1980s, Cosby served as an advisor to the Los Angeles Student Film Institute.
1990s edit
Cosby, a production assistant, and Ginna Marston of Partnership for Drug-Free Kids review the script for a 1990 public service spot at Cosby's studio in Astoria, Queens After The Cosby Show went off the air in 1992, Cosby embarked on a number of other projects, which included a revival of the classic Groucho Marx game show You Bet Your Life (1992–93), the TV-movie I Spy Returns (1994), and The Cosby Mysteries (1994). In the mid-1990s, he appeared as a detective in black-and-white film noir-themed commercials for Turner Classic Movies. During this time he reunited with Sidney Poitier starring in Ghost Dad (1990), and appeared in minor roles in Robert Townsend's superhero comedy The Meteor Man (1993), and Francis Ford Coppola's coming of age film Jack (1996). In addition, he was interviewed in Spike Lee's HBO project 4 Little Girls (1997), a documentary about the 1963 racist bombing of a church in Birmingham, Alabama which injured 22 people, killing four girls.
Also in 1996, he started up a new show for CBS, Cosby, again co-starring Phylicia Rashād, his onscreen wife on The Cosby Show. Cosby co-produced the show for Carsey-Werner Productions. It centered on Cosby as Hilton Lucas, an iconoclastic senior citizen who tries to find a new job after being downsized and, in the meantime, gets on his wife's nerves. Madeline Kahn co-starred as Rashād's goofy business partner Pauline. Cosby was hired by CBS to be the official spokesman of its Detroit affiliate WWJ-TV during an advertising campaign from 1995 to 1998. Cosby also hosted a CBS special, Kids Say the Darndest Things on February 6, 1995, which was followed after as a full season show, with Cosby as host, from January 9, 1998, to June 23, 2000. After four seasons, Cosby was canceled. Its last episode aired April 28, 2000. Kids Say the Darndest Things was terminated the same year.
2000s edit
A series for preschoolers, Little Bill, created by Cosby as a semi-biographical representation of his childhood growing up in Philadelphia, made its debut on Nickelodeon in 1999. The network renewed the popular program in November 2000. In 2001, Cosby's agenda included the publication of a new book, as well as delivering the commencement addresses at Morris Brown College, Ohio State University, and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Also that year, he signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop a live-action feature film centering on the popular Fat Albert character from his 1970s cartoon series. Fat Albert was released in theaters in December 2004. In May 2007, Cosby spoke at the commencement of High Point University. In the summer of 2009, Cosby hosted a comedy gala at Montreal's Just for Laughs, the largest comedy festival in the world.
During this time he also made an appearance in Mario Van Peebles film Baadasssss! in 2003. He also co wrote and executive produced the live action film Fat Albert starring Kenan Thompson. Cosby makes an appearance in the film as himself.
2010s edit
A new NBC show scheduled for 2015, created by Mike O'Malley and Mike Sikowitz and to have been produced by The Cosby Show's Tom Werner, was set to feature Cosby as Jonathan Franklin, the patriarch of a multi-generational family. On November 19, 2014, NBC scrapped Cosby's new show after accusations resurfaced that he sexually assaulted and raped women.
Reruns of The Cosby Show were pulled from television as a result of Cosby's sexual assault allegations. On November 19, 2014, NBC and TV Land both ended their relationships with Cosby: TV Land announced that it was pulling reruns from its schedule and also removing clips of the show from its website. In December 2014, the Magic Johnson-owned Aspire removed the series from its lineup. In July 2015, broadcast network Bounce TV pulled reruns, and BET's Centric (another Viacom unit) stopped airing reruns. In late 2014, Creative Artists Agency, Cosby's agency since 2012, dropped him as a client.
Sexual assault allegations edit
He has been subjected to highly publicized sexual assault allegations ranging from 1965 to 2014. Bill Cosby raped a total of 60 women.
His allegations dated back in the mid 1960s where he faced a lawsuit from an actress he did later on settled the lawsuit. But it wasn't until October 2014 his allegations resurfaced after a stand up routine by Hannibal Buress was talking about how Bill Cosby is hypocritical criticizing African Americans for their 'behavior" while he was accused of sexual assault and drugging and raping women. Many more women came forward accusing him of drugging and raping them. More than 60 women have accused him of either attempted sexual assault, rape, drug-facilitated sexual assault, sexual battery, child sexual abuse, and sexual misconduct, which he had denied, and the statute of limitations had by then expired in nearly all cases.
Cosby had repeatedly denied the allegations and maintained his innocence. In November 2014, he responded to a question about the allegations and said: "I don't talk about it." In past interviews that were made public, Cosby declined to discuss the accusations. However, he told Florida Today, "People shouldn't have to go through that and shouldn't answer to innuendos." In May 2015 he said, "I have been in this business 52 years and I've never seen anything like this. Reality is a situation and I can't speak."
In the wake of the allegations, numerous organizations have severed ties with Cosby, and honors and titles that were previously awarded to him have been revoked. Reruns of The Cosby Show and other shows featuring Cosby have also been pulled from syndication by many organizations. 25 colleges and universities have rescinded honorary degrees. In an attempt to explain the backlash against Cosby, Adweek reporter Jason Lynch noted that the "media landscape has changed considerably—and has now been joined by the far-less-forgiving social media arena".
He was later arrested on December 30th, 2015 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania with 3 counts of sexual assault and he is facing several sexual assault charge filed against him and subsequently turned due for trial on April 2018. Facing up to 15-30 years in prison if found guilty on all three counts and a fine of $25,000.
On April 26th, 2018; Bill Cosby was found guilty of all charges of sexual assault. On September 25th, 2018, he was sentenced to three to ten years in prison; he is currently incarcerated at State Correctional Institution – Phoenix in Pennsylvania, a maximum security prison that opened shortly before his sentencing. Cosby was labeled a sexually violent predator by the Pennsylvania Sex Offenders Assessment Board.
In 2021, Bill Cosby was released from prison, after his conviction was overturned.
Videos edit
List of Accusers edit
| Victim | Crime | Date | Accused |
|---|---|---|---|
| Barbara Bowman | Rape | 1986 | 2005 |
| Beverly Johnson | Attempted assault | 1980 | 2013 |
| Louisa Moritz | Rape | 1971 | 2014 |
| Kristina Ruehli | Rape | 1965 | 2014 |
| Therese Serignese | Rape | 1976 | 2005 |
| Tamara Green | Sexual assault | 1970 | 2005 |
| Beth Ferrier | Sexual assault | 1980 | 2005 |
| Joan Tarshis | Rape | 1969 | 1980 |
| Victoria Valentino | Rape | 1970 | 1996 |
| Janice Dickinson | Rape | 1982 | 2002 |
| Carla Ferrigno | Attempted assault | 1967 | 2014 |
| Linda Joy Traitz | Sexual assault | 1969 | 2014 |
| Renita Chaney Hill | Child sexual abuse | 1982 | 2014 |
| Angela Leslie | Sexual assault | 1992 | 2014 |
| Lachele Covington | Sexual assault | 2000 | 2000 |
| Patricia Steuer | Sexual assault | 1978,
1980 |
2015 |
| Linda Kirkpatrick | Sexual assault | 1981 | 2015 |
| Linda Brown | Sexual assault | 1969 | 2015 |
| Kaya Thompson | Sexual assault | 1980 | 2015 |
| Sunni Welles | Sexual assault | 1960 | 2015 |
| Kacey | Sexual assault | 1996 | 2015 |
| Chelan Lasha | Sexual assault | 1986 | 2014 |
| Helen Hayes | Alleged assault | 1973 | 2014 |
| Heidi Thomas | Rape | 1984 | 2014 |
| PJ Masten | Rape | 1979 | 2014 |
| Sarita Butterfield | Alleged assault | 1977 | 2014 |
| Janice Baker Kinney | Rape | 1982 | 2015 |
| Autumn Burns | Rape | 1970 | 2015 |
| Lili Bernard | Rape | 1990 | 2015 |
| Sammie Mays | Sexual assault | 1987 | 2015 |
| Margie Shapiro | Rape | 1975 | 2015 |
| Joyce Emmons | Alleged assault | 1979,
1980 |
2014 |
| Rebecca Lynn Neal | Rape | 1986 | 2015 |
| Jewel Allison | Rape | 1990 | 2015 |
| Lise-Lotte Lublin | Rape | 1989 | 2015 |
| Cindra Ladd | Rape | 1969 | 2015 |
| Helen Gumpel | Attempted assault | 1987 | 2015 |
| Kathy McKee | Rape | 1973 | 2014 |
| Charlotte Fox | Rape | 1970 | 2015 |
| Marcella Tate | Rape | 1975 | 2015 |
| Shawn Brown | Rape | 1970 | 1990 |
| Lisa Jones | Attempted assault | 1986 | 2014 |
| Judith Huth | Child sexual abuse | 1974 | 2014 |
| Eden Tirl | Sexual harassment | 1990 | 2015 |
| Elizabeth | Rape | 1976 | 2015 |
| Jena T. | Sexual assault | 1988 | 2015 |
| Lisa | Sexual assault | 1988 | 2015 |
| Michelle Hurd | Attempted assault | 1995 | 2014 |
| Andrea Constand | Sexual assault | 2004 | 2005 |
| Chloe Goins | Sexual assault | 2008 | 2014 |
| Lisa Christie | Attempted assault | 1989 | 2015 |
| Pamela Abeyta | Rape | 1979 | 2015 |
| Sharon Van Ert | Sexual assault | 1976 | 2015 |
| Jane Doe (multiple) | Alleged assault | 1970 | 2005 |
| Sandy | Rape | 1980 | 2014 |
| Cynthia Myers | Alleged assault | 1997 | 2011 |
| Charlotte Kemp | Attempted assault | 1980 | 2014 |
| Dottye | Rape | 1984 | 2015 |
| Donna Barrett | Sexual assault | 2004 | 2015 |
| Linda Ridgeway Whitedeer | Sexual assault | 1970 | 2015 |
Impact on Cosby's legacy edit
Joan Tarshis, who had accused Cosby of raping her, within a Salon.com article, compared Cosby's damaged legacy to that of O.J. Simpson, saying "When you hear O.J. Simpson's name, you don't think 'Oh, great football player'. That doesn't come to mind first. I'm thinking it's not going to be 'Oh, great comedian'. It's going to be 'Oh, serial rapist'."
In 2015, Ebony magazine released an issue with Cosby's allegations as the cover story, discussing the importance of The Cosby Show and if it is possible to separate Bill Cosby from Cliff Huxtable. The cover depicted a photograph of The Huxtables with a cracked frame, symbolizing the show's damaged and complicated legacy.
Rolling Stone placed Cosby's concert film Bill Cosby: Himself as number 8 on its list of "The 25 Best Stand-Up Specials of All Time", acknowledging the significance of the film while still saying "Yes, it's damned near impossible to watch anything the tainted comedian has done and not think of the headlines, the heckling, the revelations and what is, by any definition, monstrous behavior." They also placed Cosby at number 8 on their list of "The Best Stand-up Comics Of All Time", saying "Bill Cosby is not likely to perform again; listening to his records will never have that gentle, sweet sense of nostalgia for anyone; and while it is impossible to disconnect the performer from the man, scrubbing his name from the annals of stand-up would be impossible."