Phylicia Rashad

If you grew up in the mid to late ’80s, chances are you watched The Cosby Show. Back then, America wanted to be like the Huxtables, and the Huxtables, in return, presented a loving and supportive unit. None were as strong and devoted as one of our favorite TV moms, Clair Huxtable.

Phylicia Rashad was born as Phylicia Ayers-allen on June 19, 1948, in Houston. In 1970, she graduated from Howard University and moved to New York to begin her career.

Rashad initially was known for her stage work, accumulating a string of Broadway credits including Dreamgirls, The Wiz and Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. She later became the first black actress to win the Best Actress in a Play Tony Award for A Raisin in the Sun in 2004.

In 1983, Rashad joined the ABC soap opera One Life to Live as publicist Courtney Wright before landing her most well-known role as lawyer Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show. The show ran for eight years, from 1984 to 1992, and featured a husband-and-wife team raising their five children. Rashad played Clair as a loving mother who was a warm and humorous presence among the family, but could give out whatever discipline was required. When The Cosby Show ended, Rashad guest-starred on TV shows such as Everybody Hates Chris and Psych.

Around that time, Rashad pivoted to films, starring in two Tyler Perry films in two years (For Colored Girls in 2010 and Good Deeds in 2012). The FOX series Empire brought her back to television for a recurring guest role. She was most recently seen as the widow of Apollo Creed in both Creed and Creed II, and in multiple episodes of NBC’S popular family drama This Is Us.