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Phylicia Rashād (born Phylicia Ayers-Allen; June 19, 1948) is an American Tony Award-winning actress and singer, best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the long-running NBC sitcom The Cosby Show. In 2004, Rashād became the first African-American actress to win the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, for her role in the revival of A Raisin in the Sun. She resumed the role in the 2008 television adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun, which earned her the 2009 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic... MORE

Phylicia Rashād (born Phylicia Ayers-Allen; June 19, 1948) is an American Tony Award-winning actress and singer, best known for her role as Clair Huxtable on the long-running NBC sitcom The Cosby Show. In 2004, Rashād became the first African-American actress to win the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, for her role in the revival of A Raisin in the Sun. She resumed the role in the 2008 television adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun, which earned her the 2009 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Actress in a Television Movie, Mini-Series or Dramatic Special. Rashād was dubbed "the mother" of the African-American community at the 42nd NAACP Image Awards. In 2011, she was named the first Denzel Washington Chair professor in Theatre at Fordham University, supported by a $2 million gift from the actor. Rashād was born in Lake Arthur, Louisiana. Her mother, Vivian Ayers (for whom the mother in The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was named), was a Pulitzer-prize nominated artist, poet, playwright, scholar, and publisher. Her father, Andrew Arthur Allen (d. 1984), was an orthodontist and dentist. Rashād's siblings are jazz-musician brother Tex (Andrew Arthur Allen, Jr., LESS