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 talented Broadway actress who shot to fame with her portrayal of loving mother-of-five and high-powered attorney Claire Huxtable in television's The Cosby Show, Phylicia Rashad's strong television presence has lent itself to numerous dramatic roles in the years since her role as the member of one of the most famous families in television history. Born the daughter of a dentist in Texas in 1948, Rashad's (born Phylicia Allen) continual focus on her potential as an actress has attracted her to roles of integrity and honesty, with generally family friendly fare that can be enjoyed by young and old alike. After making her television debut in the 1978 production of The Wiz, Rashad appeared in such soap operas as One Life to Live and Santa Barbara before settling into an eight-year run as mother to one of television history's most beloved families (during which period she would also star with television daughter Keshia Knight Pulliam in a pair of television movies based on the popular children's character Polly). Married to Village People member Victor Willis in 1975, Rashad would later wed former Minnesota Viking and sports announcer Ahmad Rashad (who extravagantly proposed to her during a televised football game) in 1985. Continuing her television career following the end of The Cosby Show's run, Rashad would also turn up in such made-for-television thrillers as The Possession of Michael D. and The Babysitter's Seduction (both 1995) before once again joining television husband Bill Cosby in 1996's Cosby. A well-known member of numerous charities including the Diabetes Association African-American Program and the Educational Teacher's Association, Rashad has strived to bring social issues to the small screen with roles in such thoughtful productions as Uncle Tom's Cabin (1985) and Once Upon a Time...When We Were Colored (1996). Though many female actors lament the glass ceiling that prevents them from obtaining roles in their later years, Rashad's maturity brings a distinctive presence to her roles in such dramatic television productions as Free of Eden (1999) and The Old Settler (2001). Over the next several years, Rashad would prove as consistent a force on screen as ever, appearing in movies like For Colored Girls and Good Deeds, as well as on TV series like Psych and Everybody Hates Chris.

Trivia: Despite her spotty film work, Lisa Bonet remains one of the more intriguing young character actresses in Hollywood, enjoying a longevity that few former child stars can claim. Born in San Francisco in 1967, Bonet's parents divorced when she was young, and her formative years were spent mostly in New York City and L.A. At age 11, she started auditioning for commercials, and after several years of ads and walk-on TV parts, she landed a plum role in NBC's The Cosby Show. The show was an immediate hit, and Bonet quickly asserted herself as one of the most memorable kids in the Huxtable clan, the outspoken teenager Denise.It became clear that Bonet shared her character's defiant persona when she left Cosby in 1987 for a racy part opposite Mickey Rourke in director Alan Parker's gothic thriller Angel Heart. The role required the 19-year-old Bonet to appear in several graphic sex scenes, some of which had to be cut for mainstream American release. The actress seemed unfazed at the controversy surrounding her appearance in Angel Heart; nonetheless, the part did little to further her big-screen career, and by the end of the year she would return to the safety of episodic TV in the series A Different World. Also in 1987, Bonet married rocker Lenny Kravitz, whose impetuous free spirit and bi-racial upbringing uncannily paralleled her own background.The Bill Cosby-produced World was a bonafide hit, but Bonet quickly lost interest in the show, often showing up late to the set or not at all. Within two years she was gone, opting instead to spend more time with her newborn daughter Zoe. Bonet spent the remainder of the 1980s making infrequent appearances on The Cosby Show, and she made a conscious decision not to act in the early 1990s. In 1993, her marriage to Kravitz fell apart, and to make ends meet in the mid-'90s, she accepted roles in made-for-TV and straight-to-video productions. Around this time, Bonet legally changed her name to Liliquois Moon, though she claimed she would continue to use her birth name for her acting career. She had another child with boyfriend and former yoga instructor Brian Kest before returning to the big screen with a memorable supporting role in 1998's Enemy of the State. Though it appeared that her Hollywood career was once again on-track when director Stephen Frears cast her as a sultry one-night-stand in High Fidelity (2000), Bonet didn't show much interest for getting back in the acting game, and only appeared in a handful of films before returning to television for the short-lived ABC time-traveling cop drama Life on Mars in 2008. In November of 2007 Bonet married her second husband, Conan the Barbarian star Jason Momoa.

Trivia: Best-known as teenage son Theo on the legendary sitcom The Cosby Show, Malcolm-Jamal Warner had already made a handful of TV appearances when he joined the show's cast in 1984. The precocious 14 year old showed up for the last day of casting, but quickly won over the producers and remained with the show until it ended its run in 1992. Warner would go on to try his hand at several other projects, starring in the comedy series Here and Now until 1993 and taking on the role of The Producer on the children's series The Magic School Bus from 1994 to 1997. Warner would also star in the sitcom Malcolm & Eddie starting in 1996, staying with the show until 2000. In 2003, the actor began appearing on the sci-fi series Jeremiah and continued with the show until it was canceled in 2004. Warner would then take on the recurring role of Bernie on the sports-oriented comedy Listen Up in 2005, and subsequently kept busy making appearances on shows like Dexter and The Cleaner. In 2009, Warner found yet another outlet for his talents on the small screen, joining Sherri Shepherd on the sitcom Sherri. Though the series didn't last, it did provide Warner's television career with a satisfying second wind that was highlighted by a leading role on the BET comedy series Reed Between the Lines (which won him an Image Award), and a recurring character on NBC's Community.

Trivia: Best known as daughter Vanessa Huxtable on the classic sitcom The Cosby Show, actress Tempestt Bledsoe began her TV career with that very role, joining the cast for the show's premiere in 1984. Bledsoe was just 11 years old, but she instantly became a famous face in American households. After the series ended its run in 1992, the actress obtained a bachelor's degree in finance from New York University, before working her way back into show business in the late '90s with a recurring role on the legal drama The Practice. She would continue to act selectively, with appearances on shows like Strong Medicine, South of Nowhere, Raising the Bar, and The Replacements, as well as on reality shows like Clean House and Celebrit Fit Club.

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: Actress Sabrina Le Beauf is probably best known to audiences as eldest daughter Sondra on the classic sitcom The Cosby Show. The New Orleans native grew up in California, and later obtained a BA in Theatre Arts from UCLA and an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama before being cast on The Cosby Show in 1984. Le Beauf would portray the Huxtable's adult daughter, but was only 10 years younger than Phylicia Rashad, who played her mother. After the series ended its run in 1992, Le Beauf returned to UCLA and studied interior design. She subsequently started her own business, while continuing to work in TV, making occasional appearances on shows like Star Trek: The Next Generation and Fatherhood.

Trivia: The daughter of an actress and civil rights activist, African-American entertainer Lena Horne was a chorus girl in Harlem's Cotton Club at the age of 16. One year later, she had her first featured role -- as Quadroon Girl -- in the Broadway play Dance With Your Gods. Lena then went on to work as a dancer and singer for Noble Sissles's orchestra, gaining popularity with both black and white audiences, though in keeping with the racial status quo of the '30s, she was denied entrance to all-white facilities and hotels in most of the cities where she headlined on stage. Following her film in The Duke is Tops (1939), Lena was signed as a specialty performer by MGM Studios. In most of her film appearances, Lena would sing in a sequence separate from the plotline and her white costars, so that her scenes could be edited out when shown in certain Southern theatres. She managed to survive on these terms and even won leading roles in two major-studio feature films, Cabin in the Sky (1943) and Stormy Weather (1943) - both of which had all-black casts. Hollywood's attitude towards African-Americans in the '40s was slightly better than in the '30s, but producers still treaded very slowly and cautiously: Lena was allowed romantic interests in her two starring films, but her leading men were middle-aged comedians and dancers like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, Dooley Wilson, and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, so as not to offend those white viewers who felt threatened by handsome black men. Additionally, Lena was allowed to be sexy but not too sexy, lest she arouse dreams of miscegenation in the minds of impressionable white males; her most erotic scene in Cabin in the Sky, wherein she was discreetly "nude" in a bubble bath (the bubbles providing censor-proof camouflage) was removed from the film, not to be seen in public until shown in the 1994 compilation That's Still Entertainment. Idiotic corporate decisions like this only intensified Lena's mistrust of white men, an attitude drummed into her by her mother; yet privately she managed to find lasting happiness as the wife of white musician Lennie Hayton. Lena's career suffered in the '50s, when she had difficulty securing TV work not only because of her race but also because of her friendship with Paul Robeson, the famed black singer who'd embraced Communism. Eventually talent won out over ideology, and Lena starred on Broadway in Jamaka in 1957, following this personal triumph with numerous media and live performances. Still, Lena and her husband found a more hospitable reception when they travelled to France, a country where a mixed marriage did not automatically result in rude stares and snide newspaper commentary. In 1969, Horne returned to films in Death of a Gunfighter, where thanks to relaxed racial tensions she was able to play the former lover of white sheriff Richard Widmark. Still beautiful and in terrific voice, Horne went strong into the '90s, attaining the rare status of Living Legend. She died in 2010 at the age of 92.

Trivia: The son of a musician, African American actor Clarence Williams III was raised by his grandmother. While attending his local YMCA branch as a teenager, Williams became interested in dramatics. After a two-year hitch with the Air Force, he began his acting career, making his New York debut in 1960's The Long Dream. Williams amassed an impressive list of Broadway credits, and in 1966 was artist in residence at Brandeis University. Still, he remained an unknown commodity in Hollywood until 1968, when he was cast as "hip" undercover cop Linc Hayes on the popular TV weekly The Mod Squad. After the series' cancellation in 1973, Williams divided his time between stage and film work, occasionally functioning as a director. Among his better-known assignments of recent years was the role of Prince's father in Purple Rain (1984) and the recurring part of Roger Hardy in the cult TV series Twin Peaks (1990). Clarence Williams III is married to actress Gloria Foster.