William Henry Cosby was born on July 12, 1937 in the Germantown district of North Philadelphia. As a youth, he grew up in the all-African American Richard Allen housing project where his mother, Anna Cosby, struggled to raise him and his younger brothers, Russell and Robert. His father, William Cosby, Sr., served as a mess steward in the U.S. Navy and was away for months at a time. Cosby loved listening to comedy radio shows featuring Jack Benny, Burns & Allen, Jimmy Durante, and Fred Allen, as a child. By the fifth grade, Cosby was getting up in front of his class and making everybody laugh, including his teacher. His teachers knew that Cosby had a high IQ, so they placed him in classes for gifted students. Well being a very intelligent student, Cosby's he found little time for schoolwork due to an outside job and playing football, basketball, baseball, and running track. The biggest heartache came while he was in the tenth-grade. His teachers informed him that he would have to repeat the grade because his grades were poor. Instead of repeating the grade, Cosby dropped out of school and enlisted in the Navy in 1965.

"Away from school, Cosby realized the importance of an education and used his four years in the Navy to prepare for the day when he would continue his schooling. Cosby learned physical therapy, traveled around the Western Hemisphere, and earned a high school equivalency diploma through correspondence courses. In 1961, at the age of 23, Cosby won a track and field scholarship to Temple University."

During his sophomore year at Temple, Cosby found employment telling jokes while tending bar at a local coffeehouse in Philly. From there, he upgraded to the Underground, a Philadelphia nightclub and eventually to Gaslight Cafe. "The Gaslight soon tripled Cosby's salary, and within months the William Morris Agency signed him to a management contract. He soon cut a comedy album and traveled the comedy club circuit, performing at the "hungry i" in San Francisco, Mr. Kelly's in Chicago, and the Flamingo in Las Vegas." From there the rest is history. Cosby has been blessed to have his own television sitcoms, star in numerous films, perform his comedy around the world, and even write several books. Through all his ups and downs in life, he has continued to succeed.

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