"I am just myself, and who I am is a lot."
Phylicia Rashad (née Ayers-Allen; born June 19, 1948 in Houston, Texas) is an American actress, singer and stage director.
While her list of roles in film and television is long, she is best known for starring alongside Bill Cosby in The Cosby Show as Clair Huxtable, the wife of Cosby's character, Cliff. In 2005, she became the first Black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for her role as Lena Younger in the Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun.
She is the older sister of actress Debbie Allen and her daughter is actress Condola Rashad.
Selected credits:
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Film
- Uncle Tom's Cabin (1987)
- For Colored Girls (2010)
- Good Deeds (2011)
- Steel Magnolias (remake, 2012)
- Rocky series
- Tour de Pharmacy (2017)
- Tyler Perry's A Fall From Grace (2020)
- The Beekeeper (2024)
Television
- One Life to Live (1983–84)
- The Cosby Show (1984–92)
- Cosby (1996–2000)
- Do No Harm (2013)
- Jean-Claude Van Johnson (2016–17)
- Empire (recurring, 2016–18)
- When We Rise (2017)
- David Makes Man (2019)
Western Animation
- Little Bill (1999–2004)
- Sofia the First (2014)
- The Rocketeer (2019)
- Soul (2020) (2020)
- Curses! (2023–2024)
Theatre
- Into the Woods (1988)
- A Raisin in the Sun (2004)
- August: Osage County (2007)
- Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (2008)
Theme Parks
- Dinosaur (1998–2026)