Phylicia told People magazine, “Everybody who could walk tried out, but Bill told me I got the part by being Billy's mom. He said I did the scenes – about homework – with a knowing look in my eye.”
Cosby originally envisioned Clair as a Dominican plumber and himself as a chauffeur, but when his real-life wife Camille insisted that the couple hold professional jobs, Cosby agreed.
Born in Houston as Phylicia Ayers-Allen, Phylicia came from a creative family. Her mother Vivian Ayers was a Pulitzer-prize nominated artist and poet, and sister Debbie Allen is an actress and director who turned around “Different World” when she took helm of the “Cosby” spinoff. Brother?
Growing up, Phylicia said she felt overshadowed by younger sister Debbie. “I thought I was ugly,” she said in the 1989 People article. But in the sixth grade she gave a reading at a song festival. “I stood there in the light in a pretty dress, and I felt beautiful. I thought, 'This [performing] is what I'll do.'”
Classic TV Beauties 1980s Countdown
PHYLICIA RASHAD as Clair Huxtable in "The Cosby Show"
A woman of beauty and grace and intelligence, Phylicia's Clair was the most visible African-American woman on television in the 1980s. Clair was a brilliant, bi-lingual attorney but also a sensible and sassy mother on arguably the most influential show of the decade.
A two-time Emmy nominee for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, Phylicia played Clair as a strict discplianarian who kept the family in line but she showed her softer side as Bill Cosby's elegant wife.
The Huxtables were an upper-middle class family living in Brooklyn, NY. Cosby, whose goal for the show was to focus on education and family, played an obstetrician.
Critics blasted the show for not tackling race issues and for portraying blacks in unrealistic affluent roles.
Phylicia vehemently disagreed.
“Truthfully, it was quite realistic. This was not an invention,” she said in an interview with the Archive of American Television in 2007.
“What Bill did in being authentic was show that people are much more alike than they can be different... People all over the world care about the same things.”
In th“The Cosby Show” wasn't simply a program about a black family; it was about an American family and it shattered the myth that white people would not watch a show with an all-black cast.
“The Cosby Show” ranked No. 1 in the Nielsen ratings every year from 1985-89 and was a Top 5 show for seven of its eight seasons. “Cosby” was the foundation for NBC dominating Thursday night TV for more than a decade and it's been estimated that the show earned the network $1 billion.
In 2009 TV Guide voted “The Cosby Show” as No. 28 on its list of all-time Top 50 shows.
It was Phylicia's skillful interaction with her TV children that won her the part of Clair. In a 2009 interview with www.theroot.com, Cosby told how he found his TV wife.
"The day she got the part... she was reading with Malcolm [Jamal-Warner] and he said something to her... there was a pause from her,” he said. “And do you know what she did in that pause? She did something with her eyes... She didn't bop her head and she didn't say anything out loud. She cut a look that said four or five things and none of them were good. And I said, 'That's Clair.'"
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When Phylicia was 13 she said her mom marched into the house and announced that she was sick of living in the racist south, so the family moved to Mexico City.
Phylicia eventually returned to the USA and graduated from Howard University. Her early acting career was highlighted by a series of Broadway plays. She played Deena Jones in “Dreamgirls,” and was a Munchin in “The Wiz.”
Years later, in 2004, she was the first black actress to win a Tony for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play for “A Raisin in the Sun.”
Phylicia's had a longtime association with Cosby. They reunited on his second sitcom, “Cosby,” replacing Telma Hopkins as Ruth Lucas in a show about a grumpy retiree and his wife. And for ten years, she was the voice of Brenda in the animated series “Little Bill.”
“What I love about being an actress is being able to look into myself and understand another human being,” she said.
