Early life

Rashad was born Phylicia Ayers-Allen in Houston, Texas. Her mother, Vivian Ayers, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated artist, poet, playwright, scholar, and publisher. Phylicia's father, Andrew Arthur Allen, (d. 1984), was an orthodontist. (Phylicia's maiden name combines the surnames of both her parents.) Rashad's siblings are jazz-musician brother Tex (Andrew Arthur Allen, Jr., born 1945), sister Debbie Allen (born 1950), an actress, choreographer, and director, and brother Hugh Allen (a real estate banker in North Carolina). While Rashad was growing up, her family moved to Mexico, and as a result, Rashad speaks Spanish fluently.

Rashad studied at Howard University, graduating magna cum laude in 1970 with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. She is also a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority. She was initiated into the Alpha Chapter during her tenure at Howard University.

Theatre

Rashad first became known for her stage work with a string of Broadway credits, including Deena Jones in Dreamgirls (she was Sheryl Lee Ralph's understudy until leaving the show in 1982 after being passed over as Ralph's full-time replacement) and playing a Munchkin in The Wiz for three and a half years. In 1978, she released the album Josephine Superstar, a disco Concept album telling the life story of Josephine Baker. The album was mainly written and produced by Jacques Morali and Rashad's second husband Victor Willis, original lead singer and lyricist of the Village People. She met Willis while they were both cast in The Wiz.

Other Broadway credits include August: Osage County, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, Gem of the Ocean, Raisin in the Sun (2004 Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play/Drama Desk Award), Blue, Jelly's Last Jam, Into the Woods, and Ain't Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Off-Broadway credits include Lincoln Center’s productions of Cymbeline and Bernarda Alba; Helen, The Story and Everybody's Ruby at the Public Theater; The Negro Ensemble Company productions of Puppet Play, Zooman and the Sign, Sons and Fathers of Sons, In an Upstate Motel, Weep Not For Me, and The Great Mac Daddy; Lincoln Center's production of Ed Bullins' The Duplex; and The Sirens at the Manhattan Theatre Club. In regional theatre, she performed as Euripedes' Medea and in Blues for an Alabama Sky at the Alliance Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. Other regional theatres at which she has performed are the Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. and the Huntington Theatre in Boston.

Rashad was the first African-American actress to win the Best Actress (Play) Tony Award, which she won for her 2004 performance as Lena Younger in a revival of the play A Raisin in the Sun by playwright Lorraine Hansberry. She was nominated for the same award the following year, for Gem of the Ocean. Several Black women have won in the Best Actress (Musical) category, including the late Virginia Capers, who won in 1973 for her portrayal of Lena in the musical adaptation of Hansberry's play, entitled Raisin. Rashad also won the 2004 Drama Desk award for Best Actress in a Play for A Raisin in the Sun by tying (split award) with Viola Davis for the play Intimate Apparel.

In 2007, Rashad made her directorial debut with the Seattle Repertory Theatre's production of August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. More recently, in early 2014 Rashad directed a revival of Fences, also by Wilson, at the McCarter Theatre in Princeton, NJ, which ran to generally positive reviews, and continued an ongoing focus on Wilson's work.

Rashad can currently be seen in the lead role of Shelah in Tarell Alvin McCraney's new play Head of Passes at The Public Theater. The production began previews on March 17, 2016, opened on March 28, and is scheduled to run through May 1. Her performance has been very positively reviewed.

Film and television

Rashad received a career boost when she joined the cast of the ABC soap opera One Life to Live to play publicist Courtney Wright in 1983. She is best known for another television role, that of attorney Clair Huxtable on the NBC sitcom The Cosby Show. The show, which ran from 1984 to 1992, starred Bill Cosby as obstetrician Heathcliff "Cliff" Huxtable, and focused on their life with their five children.

When Cosby returned to TV comedy in 1996 with CBS's Cosby, he called on Rashad to play Ruth Lucas, his character's wife. The pilot episode had been shot with Telma Hopkins, but Cosby then fired the executive producer and replaced Hopkins with Rashad. The sitcom ran from 1996 to 2000. That year, Cosby asked Rashad to work on his animated television series Little Bill, in which the actress voiced Bill's mother, Brenda, until the show's end in 2002. She also 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.

She played Kill Moves' affluent mother on Everybody Hates Chris on Sunday, December 9, 2007. In 2007 she appeared as Winnie Guster in the Psych episode Gus's Dad May Have Killed an Old Guy. She returned to the role in 2008, in the episode Christmas Joy.

In February 2008, she appeared in the television adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun. She 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. She appeared alongside stage veterans James Earl Jones (Big Daddy) and Anika Noni Rose (Maggie), as well as film actor Terrence Howard, who made his Broadway debut as Brick. She next appeared as Violet Weston, the drug-addicted matriarch of Tracy Letts's award-winning play, August: Osage County at the Music Box Theatre.

In November 2010, Rashad starred 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. In 2012 she starred in another Tyler Perry movie Good Deeds. In that same year, Rashad played Clairee Belcher in the remake of Steel Magnolias (the role originated by Olympia Dukakis). This version has an all African American cast.

Rashad played Mary Anne Creed in the 2015 movie Creed.

Personal life

Rashad's first marriage, in 1972, was to dentist William Lancelot Bowles, Jr. They had one son, William Lancelot Bowles III, who was born the following year. The marriage ended in 1975. Rashad then married Victor Willis (original lead singer of the Village People, whom she met during the run of The Wiz) in 1978. Their divorce was finalized in 1982.

She married former NFL wide receiver and sportscaster Ahmad Rashād on December 14, 1985. It was a third marriage for both of them and she took his last name. They were married after he 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. Their daughter, Condola Phyleia Rashād, was born on December 11, 1986 in New York. The couple divorced in early 2001.

Filmography

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1976	Delvecchio	Ventita Ray	Episode: "Wax Job"
1983-84	One Life to Live	Courtney Wright	Regular role
1984-92	The Cosby Show	Clair Hanks Huxtable	195 episodes
1985	Santa Barbara	Felicia Dalton	3 episodes
1985	The Love Boat	Lonette Becker	Episode: "A Day in Port"
1987	Uncle Tom's Cabin	Eliza	Television movie
1988	Mickey's 60th Birthday	Herself	Movie
1988-90	A Different World	Clair Hanks Huxtable	4 episodes
1989	False Witness	Lynne Jacobi	Movie
1989	Polly	Aunt Polly	Movie
1990	Reading Rainbow	Herself	Episode: "Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters"
1990	Polly: Comin' Home!	Aunt Polly	Movie
1990	The Earth Day Special	Clair Huxtable	Special
1991	Jailbirds	Janice Grant	Movie
1991	Blossom	Blossom's Dream Mom	Episode: "Blossom's Blossom"
1993	American Playhouse	Mayor Turner	Episode: "Hallelujah"
1994	David's Mother	Gladys Johnson	Movie
1994-2002	Touched by an Angel	Elizabeth Jessup	2 episodes
1995	The Possession of Michael D	Dr. Marion Hale	Movie
1995	In the House	Rowena	Episode: "Sister Act"
1996	The Babysitter's Seduction	Detective Kate Jacobs	Movie
1996-2000	Cosby	Ruth Lucas	92 episodes
1998	Intimate Portrait	Herself/Narrator	4 episodes
1999	Free of Eden	Desiree	Movie
2001	Murder She Wrote: The Last Free Man	Cassandra Hawkins	Movie
2001	The Old Settler	Elizabeth	Movie
1999-2004	Little Bill	Brenda (voice)	Main role (21 episodes)
2007	Working in the Theatre	Actor	Episode: "August Wilson's Legacy"
2007	Everybody Hates Chris	Kathleen Devereaux	Episode: "Everybody Hates Kwanzaa"
2007-14	Psych	Winnie Guster	3 episodes
2008	A Raisin in the Sun	Lena Younger	Movie
2008	The Life & Times of Tim	The Boss's Wife (voice)	Episode: "Theo Strikes Back/Amy Gets Wasted"
2012	The Cleveland Show	Dee Dee Tubbs (voice)	4 episodes
2012	Steel Magnolias	Clairee	Movie
2013	Gods Behaving Badly	Demeter	Filmed in 2011
2013	Do No Harm	Dr. Vanessa Young	Supporting role (all 13 episodes)
2014	Sofia the First	Glacia the Ice Witch (voice)	Episode: "Winter's Gift"

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1995	Once Upon a Time... When We Were Colored	Ma Ponk
2000	Loving Jezebel	Alice Melville
2000	The Visit	Dr. Coles
2010	Just Wright	Ella McKnight
2010	Frankie & Alice	Edna
2010	For Colored Girls	Gilda
2012	Good Deeds	Wilimena
2015	Creed	Mary Anne Creed

Awards and honors

Year	Association	Category	Work	Result
1985	Emmy Award	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series	The Cosby Show	Nominated
1986				Nominated
1988	NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Actress in a Comedy Series		Won
1989				Won
1997			Cosby	Won
1998				Nominated
1999	Satellite Award	Satellite Award for Best Actress - Television Series Musical or Comedy		Nominated
2002	NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special	The Old Settler	Nominated
2004	Tony Award	Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play	A Raisin in the Sun	Won
2005			Gem of the Ocean	Nominated
2008	Primetime Emmy Award	Outstanding Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie	A Raisin in the Sun	Nominated
2009	NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special		Won
	Screen Actors Guild Award	Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie		Nominated
2011	Black Reel Awards	Outstanding Supporting Actress	For Colored Girls	Won
	NAACP Image Award	Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture		Nominated
2015	The BET Honors	Theatrical Arts Award	N/A (Honoree)	Won

• 2003: Honored as Woman of the Year by the Harvard Black Men's Forum
• 2005: received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts (D.F.A.) degree from Brown University
• 2011: received an honorary doctorate degree from Spelman College for her work in the Arts
• 2011: named the first Denzel Washington Chair professor in Theatre at Fordham University, supported by a $2 million gift from the actor

[ Source: Wikipedia ]