Trivia: African-American entertainer Bill Cosby, in his own words, "started out as a child," the son of an eight-dollars-a-day maid and an absentee father. A product of grinding poverty, Cosby escaped his rundown Philadelphia neighborhood by dropping out of high school and joining the navy. He earned his diploma via correspondence course, then earned a football scholarship to Temple University. Working nights as a bartender, Cosby discovered he had the ability to make people laugh, so he temporarily shelved his plans to become an athletics teacher and set out to become a nightclub comedian. Most black comics of the era used the race issue in their act; this didn't quite work for Cosby, but relating humorous reminiscences about himself and his childhood buddies worked beautifully. After numerous TV guest shots and several top-selling, Grammy Award-winning record albums, Cosby was signed by producer Sheldon Leonard to co-star with Robert Culp in a weekly TV espionage series, I Spy. This was an era of acute racial tension; many NBC executives were wary about a black leading man, and quite a few Southern affiliates threatened not to run the show, but Leonard, a street scrapper from way back, refused to back down. I Spy was a hit, earning Cosby an Emmy. As the series progressed, the camaraderie between Cosby and Culp deepened, and by the end of the series, Culp was talking and ad-libbing in the same low-key, offbeat cadence that Cosby had adopted for his club appearances! After I Spy, Cosby signed a sweetheart deal with NBC, which guaranteed him a two-year run on his next program, whether the ratings were good or not. The Bill Cosby Show cast the star as high school coach Chet Kincaid, and was unusual for the time in that it was a sitcom minus a laughtrack. At times it was a sitcom minus laughs as well, but NBC had made its promise, and Cosby did his best. In the '70s he teamed with actor/director Sidney Poitier to make a trio of popular crime/comedy features: Uptown Saturday Night, Let's Do It Again, and A Piece of the Action. Viewers who think of Cosby in terms of one success after another have forgotten such failed 1970s TV projects as The New Bill Cosby Show and Cos. On the opposite end of the spectrum, there was The Cosby Show, the eight-season wonder that single-handedly rescued the sitcom format from oblivion in 1984 and enabled the woebegone NBC network to crack the Number One slot in the ratings week after week. And there were guest spots on the award-winning children's show The Electric Company and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids (1969-84) a superlative Saturday morning cartoon show supervised by Cosby that managed to be what is now called "prosocial" without losing any of the fun. He has also been the long-time commercial spokesman for Jell-O. In the fall of 1996 Cosby returned to prime time TV with yet another The Cosby Show sitcom, again set in New York City and co-starring Phylicia Rashad. Although The Cosby Show became made him arguably the most famous person in the country, he could not capitalize that rush of fame into a film career choosing to make a series of box office bombs including Leonard Part 6 and Ghost Dad. He created yet another TV show, The Cosby Mysteries, and shepherded a successful animated chilsdren's series, Little Bill, to screens in 2001. He appeared in the big-screen version of Fat Albert in 2004.

Trivia: A native of New Jersey, actress Keshia Knight Pulliam first rocketed into the national spotlight -- and won the hearts of many a devoted '80s television viewer -- as Rudy Huxtable, the spunky, pint-sized youngest daughter of Dr. Cliff Huxtable (Bill Cosby), on The Cosby Show. Initially brought in at the age of five (in 1984), Knight Pulliam imparted the series with a "cuteness" factor that laudably waned somewhat as the program wore on and the actress herself aged (though producers eventually brought in Raven-Symone to fill the gap). By the fall of 1992, in fact -- when Cosby wrapped -- Knight Pulliam had reached her teens. Over the course of the series run, she received an Emmy nod for Best Supporing Actress at age six, and qualified at the time as the youngest actress to be nominated for an Emmy in history. During Cosby, Knight Pulliam also essayed occasional feature roles; among other accomplishments, she headlined at several telemovies, including the period holiday drama The Little Match Girl (1987), the Mark Twain update A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1989), and Debbie Allen's musical version of Pollyanna, Polly (1989), as well as its sequel, Polly: Comin' Home! (1990). After The Cosby Show wrapped, Knight Pulliam attended Spelman College in Atlanta, then achieved a second wind in her career as a reality television star, on programs including a celebrity installment of Fear Factor, Celebrity Mole: Yucatan, and a TV child stars episode of The Weakest Link. She also signed for a starring role in Tyler Perry's Madea Goes to Jail (2009), as Candy, a locked-up prostitute befriended by the sardonic, hell-raising Madea.

Trivia: Raven-Symone earned a fond place in the hearts of Cosby Show fans around the world when she joined the cast of that seminal '80s sitcom as pint-sized Olivia Kendall, the daughter of Lt. Martin Kendall (Joseph C. Phillips) and Denise Huxtable Kendall (Lisa Bonet) during the hit program's sixth season. The series wrapped within a few years of Symone's enlistment, but the young actress continued her ascent by establishing herself as a force to be reckoned with in the multiple venues of television, pop music, and feature film.Born in Atlanta, GA, in December 1985, Raven-Symoné Christina Pearman began modeling diapers at the age of two and landed the Cosby assignment by the age of three. By 1993 (one year after Cosby took its final bow), Symone had joined the cast of yet another sitcom, ABC's Hangin' With Mr. Cooper (1992-1997), then a year into production; she would remain with Cooper until it folded in 1997, but in the mean time branched off into another venue altogether as an R&B recording artist. MCA quickly signed her and issued her rap-infused album Here's to New Dreams in 1993; unfortunately, it failed to connect with a sizeable audience, and it would be six years before Symone emerged with a sophomore recording, the R&B-flavored Undeniable (1999). That album unabashedly showcased the young performer's desire to become a teen pop sensation, and revealed her vocal skills much more transparently than its predecessor, as did its follow-up efforts. Meanwhile, Symone landed bit parts and supporting roles in movies, including Dr. Dolittle (1998) and Dr. Dolittle 2 (2001); she also voiced the character of Monique on the animated television series Kim Possible (2002) and headlined her own Disney Channel sitcom, That's So Raven. The smash program cast Symone as a 15-year-old girl whose gaffes get her family into a seemingly endless series of outrageous difficulties. Symone then starred in the hit telemovies The Cheetah Girls and The Cheetah Girls 2, lent a supporting role to the theatrical feature The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement (2004), and signed to star in the big-screen outing College Road Trip, opposite funnyman Martin Lawrence. In that comedy, Symone plays a young woman on a college-scouting trip with her policeman father.

Trivia: Best known as the loose-limbed klutz Jack Tripper from the hit ABC sitcom Three's Company, John Ritter also had a long (if undistinguished) film career, dating back to the early '70s. Perhaps taking a cue from Robin Williams, Ritter fashioned a full beard when he put his slapstick days behind him, remaking himself as a serious dramatic actor both on television and in the movies in the 1990s. Ritter was born in Burbank, CA, on September 17, 1948, the second son of Western singing stars Tex Ritter and Dorothy Fay, whose talent for song he once admitted he did not inherit. Ritter was class body president at Hollywood High School before enrolling at the University of Southern California, where he majored in psychology and minored in architecture. In his third year, he decided to take a drama class taught by Nina Foch, and quickly changed his major, graduating in 1971. (He later studied with Stella Adler and the Harvey Lembeck Comedy Workshop.) His first film role was in the 1971 film The Barefoot Executive.Minor roles during the 1970s finally gave way to major success in 1977, when Ritter was cast as the pratfalling roommate of two beautiful Southern Californian women on Three's Company. The program became one of the most popular on the air, known for its farcical scenarios based on wild misunderstandings, some of which were fueled by Ritter's Jack Tripper pretending to be gay to throw off the landlord. Ritter was praised for his sharp timing and rubbery ability to bounce around the set through all variety of physical comedy. His work earned him an Emmy. Having become a major television star, Ritter enjoyed the program's success through 1985, when its spin-off (Three's a Crowd) went off the air. He worked on TV movies during the show's run, and found more TV work awaiting him upon its conclusion (the dramedy Hooperman in 1988, the comedy Hearts Afire in 1992). His familiar mug and goofball shtick earned him leads in a handful of lesser film comedies in the late '80s and early '90s, including Real Men (1987), Skin Deep (1988), Stay Tuned (1992), and two Problem Child films (1990 and 1991), on the set of which he met future wife Amy Yasbeck.Not satisfied with his comic pigeonholing, Ritter took well-received strides toward drama in the 1990s. He made a lasting impression on critics as a gay dollar-store owner in Billy Bob Thornton's Sling Blade (1996), as well as a psychiatrist treating a hitman in Henry Bromell's Panic (2000). Ritter has also made recurring guest appearances on the hit television programs Ally McBeal and Felicity, the latter of which cast him in the agonizing role of a frequently relapsing alcoholic father. In 2002 Ritter returned to television in his own new comedy series, 8 Simple Rules for Dating my Teenage Daughter. Though the show proved a modest success, Ritter's sudden death due to aortic dissection in early September of 2003 left castmates and fans alike shocked and deeply saddened.

Trivia: If television and movie buffs with a keen eye suspect that they may have seen actress Amy Yasbeck somewhere before, it could be from her early roles on the long-running soap opera mainstay Days of Our Lives or a mid-'90s stint on Wings, but it's possible that Yasbeck's recognition factor reaches back even further into the pop culture public conscience. As a child, the pretty actress was featured on the box of the wildly popular Easy Bake Oven.Born and raised the daughter of a grocery store proprietor father and a homemaker in Cincinnati, OH, Yasbeck got her break in show business after moving to New York City, where she was discovered by an agent while working in a restaurant. Moving to Los Angeles shortly after she began auditioning for roles, the aspiring actress made her television debut on Love, American Style before taking a villainous turn as Olivia in Days of Our Lives. As her small-screen career began gaining momentum with roles in Dallas, Magnum P.I., and The Cosby Show, Yasbeck also appeared early on in such features as House II: The Second Story (1987), Pretty Woman, and Problem Child (both 1990), on the set of which she met future husband John Ritter. Her versatile ability to transform herself into a given character regardless of apparent physical disparities was later evidenced in Yasbeck's role as Maid Marian in Mel Brooks' zany parody Robin Hood: Men in Tights. Though her role description called for a buxom blond actress of British persuasion, the artifices of a wig, a phony accent, and some creative costume-stuffing won the actress the role while simultaneously winning the favor of director Brooks (who later cast Yasbeck opposite Wings co-star Steven Webber in Dracula: Dead and Loving It [1995]). Drifting between television (Alright, Already, I've Got a Secret) and film (Odd Couple II, Denial [both 1998]). Throughout the next decade she made regular guest appearances in various TV series including Just Shoot Me!, That's So Raven, and Hot in Cleveland.