Its Bill Cosby's birthday today. He's 74 years old!
I have to admit that I never realized truly how cool Bill Cosby was back in the day. I came up seeing him in this image of Heathcliff Huxtable, the family man, with a beautiful wife and 5 kids. "The Cosby Show" for all of its greatness and success, while watching it as a kid, never really told me how cool and fun to be around this man was in real life. Cool, not in the sense of a family0man, a responsible adult with the responsibilitites of being a husband and a father several times over. But as a younger man who hadn't fully matured to the point where he was a well-rounded human being.
Now that I'm older...
Now that I am an adult that has seen some things...
Yeah, Bill Cosby was The Motherfucking Man!!!!
He was a regular at The Playboy Mansion in its heyday.
He did tours with jazz musicians.
(those same musicians that would later appear on his show)
He smoked cigars.
He drove fancy and fast cars.
He helped folks out in Hollywood
(ask Melvin Van Peebles)
He was well-connected and respected.
So, I have to give reverence to an icon. Respect where its due.
What I heard Eddie say in "Raw" really didn't give the full picture as to what The Cos had done prior to that point. Had I gone off that one bit in "Raw", I would not have thought about watching "Uptown Saturday Night" only to find Richard Pryor in a cameo. I'll do some further research, but I'm sure The Cos did somebody a favor(or three) during this production. Hell, the cast is a who's who of Black Entertainment at the time. Sidney Poitier. Harry Belafonte. Flip Wilson. Rosalind Cash. Roscoe Lee Browne. Harold Nicholas. Etc al.
Nowadays to have that many Black entertainers in one movie would require a 4 minute trailer just to show the names as equal billing, regardless of screen time.
It did not register with me that "Fat Albert" the cartoon series was also used in his Doctoral Dissertation. He used a show that he created(based on one of his routines) to help educate children and then use the outcomes from that to show the benefits in his work entitled: "An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' Into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning". Mind you, he went to work on his doctorate while still being a major player in Hollywood. That's not just being talented, but also being driven and having discipline to complete tasks.
THOROUGH!!!!!
That is a trait that I am still trying to gain now. This man was already doing it before he was 40!
Even still, The Cos did what he could and its clear that alot of folks benefitted from associating with him. For a period of time, it was good to be friends with The Cos. And on this day, I wish him a happy birthday!!!!
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