1. Phylicia Rashad was most recently dean of the College of Fine Arts at Howard University before her three-year contract ended in May 2024.
41 Facts About Phylicia Rashad
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Phylicia Rashad is best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show which earned her two Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series nominations in 1985 and 1986.
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Phylicia Rashad played Ruth Lucas on Cosby, and Brenda Glover in Little Bill.
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Phylicia Rashad was Emmy-nominated for her roles in A Raisin in the Sun and This Is Us.
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On stage, Rashad became the first black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play, for revival of A Raisin in the Sun.
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Phylicia Rashad won her second Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play for Dominique Morisseau's Skeleton Crew.
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Phylicia Rashad has appeared in various films such as For Colored Girls, Good Deeds, Creed, Creed II, Creed III, and The Beekeeper.
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Phylicia Rashad lent her voice to the Disney-Pixar animated film Soul.
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Phylicia Rashad Ayers-Allen was born on June 19,1948, in Houston, Texas.
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Phylicia Rashad's mother, Vivian Ayers, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated artist, poet, playwright, scholar, and publisher.
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Phylicia Rashad played a Munchkin in The Wiz for three and a half years.
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Phylicia Rashad met Willis while they were both cast in The Wiz.
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Phylicia Rashad joined the cast of the ABC soap opera One Life to Live to play publicist Courtney Wright in 1983.
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Phylicia Rashad is best known for the role of attorney Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show.
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In 1985, Phylicia Rashad co-hosted the NBC telecast of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade with Pat Sajak and Bert Convy.
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In 1993, Phylicia Rashad was the first narrator at Disney's Candlelight Processional when the event was moved to Epcot.
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Phylicia Rashad played a role in the pre-show of the Dinosaur ride at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom theme park as Dr Helen Marsh, the head of the Dino Institute.
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Phylicia Rashad won the 2004 Drama Desk Award for Best Actress in a Play for A Raisin in the Sun, tying with Viola Davis for the play Intimate Apparel.
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Phylicia Rashad was nominated again for a Tony the following year, for her performance in Gem of the Ocean.
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In 2007, Phylicia Rashad made her directorial debut with the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production of August Wilson's Gem of the Ocean.
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In 2008, Phylicia Rashad starred on Broadway as Big Mama in an all African-American production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, directed by her sister Debbie Allen.
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Phylicia Rashad appeared alongside stage veterans James Earl Jones and Anika Noni Rose, as well as film actor Terrence Howard, who made his Broadway debut as Brick.
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Phylicia Rashad played "Kill Moves"' wealthy mother on the Chris Rock created sitcom Everybody Hates Chris on December 9,2007.
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Phylicia Rashad returned to the role in 2008, in the episode "Christmas Joy".
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In February 2008, Phylicia Rashad portrayed Lena Younger in the television film adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun, directed by Kenny Leon.
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Phylicia Rashad returned to directing August Wilson's work in early 2014, when she led a revival of Wilson's Fences, at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, New Jersey.
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Phylicia Rashad continued to focus on Wilson's work, including a well-received production of Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which she directed at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles in late 2016.
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From March 17 to May 1,2016, Phylicia Rashad played the lead role of Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's play Head of Passes at The Public Theater.
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In November 2010, Phylicia Rashad featured as Gilda in the ensemble cast in the Tyler Perry film For Colored Girls, based on the play For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.
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Also in 2012, Phylicia Rashad played Clairee Belcher in the remake of Steel Magnolias.
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In 2016, Phylicia Rashad was cast as a recurring guest star in the role of Diana DuBois in the third season of the Lee Daniels-produced Empire television series on Fox.
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In 2017, Rashad portrayed Bishop Yvette A Flunder, pastor of The City of Refuge Church in San Francisco, Calif.
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In 2020, Phylicia Rashad provided the voice of Libba Gardner, Joe Gardner's mother, in the Pixar animated film Soul which earned the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature.
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Phylicia Rashad returned to Broadway in the Dominique Morisseau play Skeleton Crew for which she earned a Tony Award for Best Featured Actress in a Play.
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Phylicia Rashad was dubbed "The Mother of the Black Community" at the 2010 NAACP Image Awards.
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In May 2021, Rashad was appointed as dean of Howard University's Chadwick A Boseman College of Fine Arts.
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Phylicia Rashad married Victor Willis in 1978; they had met during the run of The Wiz.
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Phylicia Rashad married a third time, to Ahmad Rashad on December 14,1985.
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Phylicia Rashad was a former NFL wide receiver and sportscaster.
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Phylicia Rashad proposed to her during a pregame show for a nationally televised Thanksgiving Day football game between the New York Jets and the Detroit Lions on November 28,1985.
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Phylicia Rashad was friendly with co-star Bill Cosby, who gave her away at her 1985 wedding to Ahmad Phylicia Rashad.