Phylicia Rashad

Phylicia Rashad (birth name: Phylicia Ayers-Allen) is the daughter of artist, poet, playwright, publisher and Pulitzer Prize nominee Vivian Elizabeth Ayers and dentist Arthur Allen, She has an older brother, Arthur Allen "Tex" Allen Jr. (born 1945), a jazz musician; a younger sister, Debbie Allen (born 1950), an actress, singer, dancer, choreographer, director, and producer; and a younger brother Hugh Allen, a real-estate banker in North Carolina.

Phylicia Rashad and her sister Debbie Allen both speak Spanish fluently because they lived in Mexico during part of their childhood, where the family moved in an attempt to escape the pervasive racism that was prevalent in 1950s America.

Phylicia Rashad's mother, Dr. Vivian Elizabeth Ayers, attended Brainerd Institute, Barber-Scotia College, and Bennett College of North Carolina. In 1952, Vivian was the first poet from the State of Texas to be nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Vivian has often been called the "Poet Laureate of Texas." In the late 1950s, Vivian's poetry, "Hawk," attracted the attention of NASA, and for about twenty years thereafter was the only poetry celebrated by NASA. Vivian worked as an apprentice librarian at Rice University's Fondren Library and Vivian was accorded full faculty status in 1965, becoming the first African American to be recognized as a full member of faculty. During Vivian's years at Rice, she organized and published The Adept Quarterly, an important contribution to the small publications movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

Phylicia Rashad has three stepchildren from her marriage to Ahmad Rashad): daughter Keva (born: 1970); daughter Maiysha (born: 1974); and son Ahmad Jr. (born: 1978).

In 1972, her mother Vivian was recognized, for her work "Workshops in Open Fields," which was hailed and recommended to the nation as a prototype of grassroots programming by the director of the National Education Association. Vivian founded the Adept New American Museum in Mt. Vernon, New York, a museum that celebrates the art and history of the American Southwest, which features Juneteenth Black cowboys, Native American sand painting, seminars on the Emancipation Proclamation, and Mayan studies. Vivian is known as a leader in the arts community in New York area.

Shares a birthday with comic-strip "Garfield," which made its newspaper premiere on June 19, 1978, making her exactly 30 years older than the titular feline.

Phylicia's second ex-husband, Victor Willis, was the lead singer of The Village People. They divorced in 1982.

Phylicia Rashad's The Cosby Show (1984) matriarch character, Clair Huxtable, was voted "TV mom closest to your own mom in spirit" by the survey participants in an April 2004 poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation.

Ahmad Rashad proposed to her on national TV during the halftime show of NBC's Thanksgiving Day broadcast of the game between the Detroit Lions and the New York Jets. Earlier in the day, she had worked NBC's Macy's Thanksgiving Day telecast. Within minutes of hearing Ahmad's request, she came onto NBC's "NFL Live" halftime set and accepted his proposal live on TV. O.J. Simpson was best man at her 1985 wedding to Ahmad Rashad and Bill Cosby walked her down the aisle.

Phylicia Rashad has two birth children: son William Lancelot "Billy" Bowles III (born: 1973, father: William Lancelot Bowles Jr.); and daughter Condola Rashad (born: December 11, 1986, father: Ahmad Rashad).

Nominated for a 2004 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Actress in a play for "A Raisin in the Sun" on Broadway.

Nominated for the 2005 Tony Award as Best Actress (Drama) for "Gem of the Ocean".

Directing "Gem of the Ocean" at the Seattle Repertory Theatre. [April 2007]

Received an honorary doctorate in Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University in 2009.

Was presented by: Marla Gibbs, Della Reese, Louis Gossett Jr. and Glynn Turman, of the Lifetime Achievement Award, at the Nate Holden Performing Arts Center in Los Angeles, California. [17 February 2011].

She was awarded the 2014 NAACP Theatre Award for Best Director (Equity) for "Joe Turner's Come and Gone" at the Mark Taper Forum Theatre in Los Angeles, California.

She was inducted into the 2016 American Theatre Hall of Fame.