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| Born As |
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William Henry Cosby Jr. |
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| Sex |
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Male |
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| Height |
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6' 1" |
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| Nationality |
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US - United States of America |
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| Date of Birth |
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July 12, 1937 |
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| Place of Birth |
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Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA |
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| Address 1 |
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P.O. Box 4049 |
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Santa Monica, CA 90411 |
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USA |
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| Address 2 |
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c/o William Morris Agency |
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One William Morris Place |
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Beverly Hills, CA 90212 |
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USA |
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Biography |
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Dr. William Henry Cosby, Jr., (born July 12, 1937) is an African American actor and comedian. Cosby was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at North Philadelphia's Germantown Hospital at 3:00 A.M. He joined the United States Navy in tenth grade and completed high school through correspondence courses. Later, he won an athletic scholarship to Temple University. After working as a bartender for several years, he began his career as a stand-up comic, winning fame for his performances and a series of record albums beginning in 1963.
TV producer Sheldon Leonard landed Cosby a break-out television role in I Spy (1965). Cosby won two Emmy Awards for his portrayal of an undercover CIA agent. Cosby then appeared in a series of shows named after himself: The Bill Cosby Show, The New Bill Cosby Show, the animated Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, Cos, The Cosby Show, The Cosby Mysteries, and Cosby. He has producer, writer, director and even composer credits on many of his projects. He won several Grammy awards for comedy albums, had a top forty song ("Little Old Man") in 1969, and sang on a number of albums. He won more Grammies for comedy than any other artist, winning every year from 1965 to 1970 and again in 1987. As of 2005, he had 3 gold- and 6 platinum-certified comedy albums. He has also written several humorous books about different aspects of life, based on his stand-up comedy such as Fatherhood and Love and Marriage. In fact, Fatherhood and Time Flies were the best selling non-fiction hardback books of 1986 and 1987, respectively. A colorful work of Cosby was his portrayal as a bigot in Bill Cosby on Prejudice (1971). Cosby earned a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts in 1977. He hosted the television program, "Kids Say the Darndest Things", which aired from 1996 through 2002.
He is married to Camille Hanks and they have four daughters. Their only son Ennis Cosby, aged 27, was murdered on January 16, 1997. Cosby received Kennedy Center Honors in 1998 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. In a British 2005 poll to find The Comedian's Comedian, he was voted amongst the top 50 comedy acts ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders. In May 2004 Cosby made public remarks critical of low-income African Americans whom he believed to be deprioritizing education in favor of sports and fashion. In 1997, Cosby was the target of allegations from Autumn Jackson, a young woman who claimed she was his daughter. She was later convicted on extortion charges. In February 2005 a second woman, California lawyer Tamara Green (maiden name Lucia), came forward alleging that in the 1970s she was drugged and groped by Cosby. Cosby's attorney continues to deny any merit to the allegations, claiming "Mr. Cosby does not have any knowledge of a woman named Tamara Green or Tamara Lucia."
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