PHYLICIA RASHAD

The great Phylicia Rashad gets a lot of credits not just from her excellent acting talent but for her contributions to the entertainment world and the black community as well. The 2010 NAACP Image Awards named her The Mother of the Black Community, and she became the first black actress who won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play.

Don’t be surprised by Phylicia’s extraordinary talent in the arts field. Her mother was the Pulitzer Prize-nominated artist Vivian Ayers. Meanwhile, two of her siblings, Debbie Allen and Tex Allen, are an actress and a jazz musician. The now-72-year-old star started as a theatre actress until she infiltrated the mainstream media and became a TV and movie star. She’s famously known as Claire Huxtable on the iconic TV series The Cosby Show and the film series Creed, in which she will reprise her role as Mary Anne Creed in the upcoming third movie installment in 2022.