Born on July 21th, 1979 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Bill Cosby had to take charge right from his childhood following his father's spiraling into drinking, his mother being already burdened with taking care of four boys, had to now address financial woes by cleaning houses. Whilst growing up in the projects, namely the Richard Allen Homes, Cosby suffered an early tragic setback due to the loss of his younger brother James at age eight. However,
Bill Cosby was spurred on by his mother's determination and bedtime storytelling that entailed the works of Mark Twain. The fictional shenanigans of characters such as Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn surely influenced a preteen Cosby's demeanor and the latter soon started to emulate the routines of comedians such as Jerry Lewis, as well as drawing inspiration from television entertainers such as Jack Benny And Sid Caesar. A teenaged
Bill Cosby honed his skills throughout school, frequently performing in stage plays and talent shows.
A star athlete throughout his school years, excelling in sports such as track, football and basketball, and though bearing out a high IQ,
Bill Cosby dropped out of school due to being asked to repeat a course due to falling grades. After a stint in the US Navy as a medical aide on ships, Cosby acquired his GED and attended Temple University on a track scholarship. It was during his tenure there that
Bill Cosby started performing in the local coffee house and using the style of Dick Gregory as an inspiration, incorporating racial and educational issues in his act. Consequently, Cosby also dropped out of college to now pursue a fulltime stand-up career and after getting his break through an appearance in the
Tonight Show in 1963, he soon scored a recording contract and released his debut comedy album
Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow . . . Right! the same year. Recording another comedy album the following year,
I Started Out as a Child,
Bill Cosby got his first starring role on television in the NBC series
I Spy.
For somebody who flunked the 10th grade,
Bill Cosby sure has been winning accolades all his life. Right from his debut comedy album to ‘Why Is There Air?’, ‘Revenge’, ‘To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With’ in the 1960s and ‘Wonderfulness’, to ‘Sports’, ‘The Electric Company’, ‘Bill Cosby Talks to Kids About Drugs’ and ‘Those of You with or Without Children, You'll Understand’ at the onset of the seventies and eighties respectively,
Bill Cosby has become a Grammy Daddy every time around. His trifecta of Emmys for playing the character of Alexander Scott in
I Spy from 1966-1968 set the precedent for being the first ones given to a black actor.
Though not having completed his Bachelors from Temple University,
Bill Cosby was able to become eligible for an MA degree from the University of Massachusetts in 1972 and a Doctorate in Education four years later for his thesis based on his philosophy behind his popular Saturday morning animated show,
Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids that ran all throughout the seventies. Additionally,
Bill Cosby has been a recipient of more than half-a-dozen honorary doctorates awarded by the likes of Berklee College of Music and Yale University. Furthermore, he also became a Kennedy Center Honoree in 1998 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. So book those
Bill Cosby tickets now for your own freedom from life's blues and self-deprecating hues by being injected with some carefully crafted hilarity.
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