Phylicia Rashad

Rashad briefly returned to stage acting in 2008 when she starred in an all-African American Broadway production of Tennessee Williams's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," which was directed by her sister, Debbie Allen. The following year, Rashad appeared as Violet Weston, the drug-addicted matriarch of Tracy Letts's award-winning play "August: Osage County," performed at the Music Box Theater.

In November 2010, Rashad appeared in the ensemble cast as Gilda in the Tyler Perry film "For Colored Girls," which was based on the play "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When the Rainbow Is Enuf" by Ntozake Shange. In 2016, she directed a well-received production of "Ma Rainey's Black Bottom" at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, California. Rashad returned to the theater to play the lead role of Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's play "Head of Passes" at The Public Theater in 2016, where her performance earned her positive reviews. In 2022, she won her second Tony Award, for Best Featured Actress in a Play, for Dominique Morisseau's "Skeleton Crew."

Television and Film Career

Rashad is best known for playing Clair Huxtable on NBC's "The Cosby Show" (1984–1992), a role that earned her Emmy nominations in 1985 and 1986. She later played Ruth Lucas on CBS's "Cosby" (1996–2000), and in more recent years has appeared as Diana DuBois on "Empire," Carol Clarke on "This Is Us," and Mary Anne Creed in "Creed" (2015), "Creed II" (2018), and "Creed III" (2023).

She also accepted a part in the pre-show of the Dinosaur ride at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom amusement park, where she played Dr. Helen Marsh, the leader of the Dino Institute. In 2012, she returned to the big screen to star in a Tyler Perry film called "Good Deeds." The same year, she played Clairee Belcher in the remake of "Steel Magnolias," which featured an African American cast. In 2017, Rashad went back to television to play Bishop Yvette A. Flunder, pastor of The City of Refuge Church in San Francisco, CA, as part of the Dustin Lance Black mini-series "When We Rise."

Personal Life

Phylicia Rashad first married a dentist named William Lancelot Bowles Jr., with whom she had a son named William Lancelot Bowles III. The marriage was short-lived, and in 1975 she divorced William Lancelot Bowles Jr. In 1978, she married Victor Willis. However, this marriage did not last long either, and the pair divorced in 1982. Rashad married a third time in 1985, this time to Ahmad Rashad, a former NFL wide receiver and sportscaster. Both were on their third marriages.

Ahmad Rashad proposed to her during a pre-game show for a nationally televised Thanksgiving Day football game between the New York Jets and the Detroit Lions on November 28, 1985. Rashad had a second child, a daughter, from her third marriage, which ended in divorce in 2001. The couple's daughter is named Condola Phylicia Rashad, and she was born on December 11, 1986, in New York.

She has a net worth of $55 million, most of which was earned during her long-running career with "The Cosby Show." Her work in "For Colored Girls" earned her a Black Reel Award and a nomination for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress. In early 2020, Phylicia Rashad's daughter, Condola, would emulate her mother's example. Rashad said her daughter had been prepped for theater since she had always been with her at work.