Bill Cosby
American actor and comedian (born 1937)
William Henry Cosby Jr. ( KOZ-bee; born July 12, 1937) is an American former comedian, actor, and media personality. Often deemed a trailblazer for African Americans in the entertainment industry, Cosby was well known in the United States for his stand-up comedy routines and television career before achieving global recognition for his portrayal of Cliff Huxtable in the sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992). He was also prolific in advertising for decades and was the recipient of numerous awards and honorary degrees throughout his career, many of which were revoked after dozens of allegations of sexual assault were made against him, starting in 2014 and culminating in a 2018 conviction for aggravated indecent assault.
Cosby began his career as a stand-up comic at the Hungry I nightclub in San Francisco in 1961, and primarily performed observational comedy in a conversational style. He released LP records of numerous standup specials starting with Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow...Right! (1963) and starred in the comedy film Bill Cosby: Himself (1983). Cosby still holds the record for winning the most Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Album, with seven wins. His acting career began with a starring role in the NBC secret-agent show I Spy (1965–1968), which broke new ground for African Americans when he made history by winning three Primetime Emmy Awards for Best Actor in a Drama Series, becoming the first black actor to do so.
Cosby made his film debut starring in Man and Boy (1971) followed by Hickey & Boggs (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let's Do It Again (1975), A Piece of the Action (1977), Leonard Part 6 (1987), and Ghost Dad (1990).
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Bill Cosby” is american actor and comedian (born 1937). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Bill, Cosby and American, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 20, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q213512. VIAF identifies the subject as 110901829. The Library of Congress control number is n82052577. 3 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1937, 1984, 1992 and 2014.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bill Cosby” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.