Bill Cosby was born on July 12, 1937 in Philadelphia. He is one of four children of Anna Pearl and William Henry Cosby Sr. Cosby was class president at Mary Channing Wister Public School in Philadelphia. He was known for his reputation as the class clown. He attended Germantown High School but failed out of tenth grade. In 1956, Cosby left school at the age of 15 to join the Navy. He worked in physical therapy with Navy and Marine Corps who had been injured during the Korean War. Cosby did eventually earn his diploma and went on to earn a doctorate in Education at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Cosby won seven Grammy Awards for Best Comedy Performance between 1965 and 1987.
In the 1980s, Cosby launched one of the most successful sitcoms of all time called The Cosby Show. Cosby co-produced and starred in the series and held much creative control. He involved himself with every aspect of the production of The Cosby Show. The show ran from September 1984 to 1992 and is one of only two sitcoms to remain at the top of the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons.At his peak of the show, he was the highest-paid television actor in the world. His base salary for the show was $1 million per episode, but when his producing, creator, syndication and various other income streams were totaled he earned $4 million per episode. That’s the same as earning $8 million per episode today. He owned 20% of the show’s equity which generated hundreds of millions in syndication royalties over the last several decades, though those royalties have mostly dried up in recent years in the wake of his scandals.
Cosby has been married to wife Camille since 1964, and the couple had five children. Their son Ennis, at age 27, was murdered in January 1997 in an attempted robbery while he was changing a flat tire on the side of the interstate. Their daughter Ensa died of renal disease while awaiting a kidney transplant in February 2018. In 2016, Cosby’s attorneys revealed he is now legally blind.
