Cosby, Bill 1937-

COSBY, BILL 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 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 stones. 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.…So I figure I'm doing as much for good race relations as the next guy."

I Spy.

In 1965 Cosby achieved a first for African Americans when he costarred with Robert Culp in I Spy, an adventure show that reflected cold-war America's seemingly endless appetite for James Bond-style espionage fantasies. But Cosby's presence as the first black star of a dramatic television series made I Spy unique; Cosby and NBC executives were concerned that some affiliates might be unwilling to carry the series. At the beginning of the 1965 season, however, only four stations—in Georgia, Florida, and Alabama—declined the show. But the rest of the country was taken with the show's exotic locales and the authentic chemistry of the stars, and it became one of the ratings hits of that television season. I Spy finished among the twenty most-watched shows that year, and Cosby was honored with an Emmy award for outstanding actor in a dramatic series, as he would be again for the next two consecutive years. Although ostensibly focused on Culp's character, the show had clearly become a vehicle for his costar.

Questions of Race

Yet throughout the series' three-year run Cosby was repeatedly confronted with the question of race. For him it was enough that I Spy portrayed two men who worked as equals despite their different races; but critics took the show to task for not having a black character engage the racial issues that inflamed the country at that time. Cosby was relieved when the series ended, enabling him to concentrate on his family (he and wife Camille had two daughters by this time) and to return to live performing. He still pursued a variety of television projects: as a regular guest host on The Tonight Show and the star of an annual special for NBC. He returned with another series in 1969, The Bill Cosby Show, a situation comedy that ran for two seasons. Cosby played a physical education teacher at a Los Angeles high school (he had actually majored in physical education at Temple University); while only a modest critical success, the show was a ratings hit, finishing eleventh in its first season.

Education

After The Bili Cosby Show left the air Cosby returned to his education, actively pursuing an advanced degree in education from the University of Massachusetts. This professional interest led to his involvement in the PBS series The Electric Company, for which he recorded several segments teaching reading skills to young children. During the 1970s he made an attempt at big-screen success, but the movies in which he appeared were modest successes at best. In 1972 he was back in prime time, with a variety series, The New Bill Cosby Show, but this time he met with poor ratings, and the show lasted only a season. More successful was a Saturday morning show, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, hosted by Cosby and based on his own childhood.

Greatest Success

Cosby's greatest television success, however, came in 1984 with the debut of The Cosby Show. For Cosby the new situation comedy was a response to the increasingly violent fare the networks usually offered. Cosby insisted on and got total creative control of the series, and he was involved in every aspect of the series. Not surprisingly, the show had parallels to Cosby's actual family life: like the characters Cliff and Claire Huxtable, Cosby and his wife Camille were college educated, financially successful, and had five children. Essentially a throwback to the wholesome family situation comedy, The Cosby Show was unprecedented in its portrayal of an intelligent, affluent, non stereotypical African American family.

Questions of Relevance

The series was an immediate success, debuting near the top of the ratings and staying there for most of its long run. The familiar question of relevance came up again but was more or less drowned out by praise for the series. People magazine called the show "revolutionary," and Newsday concurred that it was a "real breakthrough." Cosby's formula for success, as had been the case throughout his career, was to appeal to the common humanity of his audience rather than to the racial differences that might divide it.

Source:

Ronald L. Smith, Cosby (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986).