1937-
Television Star

Television Popularity.

Actor and comedian Bill Cosby became one of the most popular television personalities of the 1980s with the success of The Cosby Show, a situation comedy unprecedented in its portrayal of an affluent African American family. Although The Cosby Show occasionally received criticism for ignoring the issues facing the African American community, the series earned some of the highest ratings on television from its debut in the 1984 season.

Stand-up Comic.

Cosby had his first success in show business as a stand-up comic in the 1960s. He received national exposure on NBC's Tonight Show in the summer of 1963 and released the first of a series of popular comedy albums in 1964. While many comics were using the growing freedom of that decade to explore controversial, sometimes risque material, Cosby was making his reputation with humorous recollections of his childhood. Many Americans wondered about...