A-listers from high and low will pay tribute to one of comedy’s greatest entertainers, Bill Cosby, when he receives the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor at the Kennedy Center.
Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Rock, Sinbad, Dick Gregory, Wynton Marsalis and Willie Nelson will pay tribute to Cosby in song. Representing his top-rated sitcom The Cosby Show will be Phylicia Rashad and Malcolm Jamal-Warner.
Beginning with Richard Pryor in 1998, the Kennedy Center has saluted “people who have had an impact on American society in ways similar to the distinguished 19th century novelist and essayist.
Cosby’s career spans more than 50 years. In 1965, Cosby achieved a first for African-Americans when he co-starred with Robert Culp in I Spy, an adventure show in the espionage genre inspired by the James Bond films. Cosby was considered network television’s first black star. He went on to win four consecutive Emmy Awards in the 1960s.
The first three were as lead actor in a drama series for I Spy from 1966 to 1968, and the fourth came in 1969 for his self-titled special. Cosby was the first African-American actor to contend at the Emmys for a regular role in a drama series.
Though Cosby never won an Emmy for his smash hit The Cosby Show, he found success not only on television but in film and cartoons. Cosby was a regular on children’s public television programs starting in the 70s, hosting the Picture Pages segments that lasted into the early 80s.
He created Fat Albert based on his own childhood. Schools used the program as a teaching tool, and Cosby himself wrote his dissertation on it in order to obtain his doctorate, also from the University of Massachusetts, in Education in 1976.
And lets not forget what his real legacy is (I say this in jest, the man is quite the living legend. Congratulations, Mr. Cosby!):
