What is the net worth and salary of Phylicia Rashad?
Phylicia Rashad is a Tony Award-winning American actress and singer who has a net worth of $25 million. Phylicia Rashad is perhaps best known for her performance as Clair Huxtable on the hit NBC sitcom “The Cosby Show.” She later teamed up with Bill Cosby to portray Ruth Lucas on the CBS sitcom “Cosby.” Rashad appeared in many films and on Broadway, including “Into the Woods,” “Jelly’s Last Jam,” “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” and “A Raisin in the Sun,” to win a Tony Award.
The first start of life and the beginning of the career
Phylicia Rashad was born Phylicia Ayers-Allen in 1948 in Houston, Texas. Her father, Andrew, was an orthodontist, while her mother, Vivian, is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet, artist, playwright, and scholar. Rashad has three siblings: jazz musician brother Tex, actress and choreographer Debbie Allen, and real estate banker Hugh. Growing up, the family moved to Mexico, making Rashad fluent in Spanish. For college, he attended Howard University, graduating magna cum laude with a BFA in 1970.
After releasing the disco concept album “Josephine Superstar” in 1978, Rashad came to be recognized for her work on the Broadway stage in the 1980s. Among her early credits, she played Deena Jones in “Dreamgirls,” serving as Sheryl Lee Ralph’s understudy, and was a fly on “The Wiz” for nearly four years.
Theatrical success
Rashad went on to make a name for himself on stage, appearing in Broadway productions of Tracy Letts’ August: Osage County, Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods, and George C. Wolfe’s Jelly’s Last Jam. In 2004, she reached a new career high when she starred in a revival of A Raisin in the Sun. For her portrayal of Lena Younger, Rashad became the first black actress to win the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Play. The following year, she was nominated for the award for her performance in August Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean.
Rashad’s other Broadway credits include productions of Tennessee Williams’ Cat on a Hot Tin Roof starring James Earl Jones and Anika Noni Rose and Melvin Van Peebles’ Ain’t Supposed to Die a Natural Death. Rashad has also starred in many off-Broadway productions, including “Bernarda Alba,” “Cymbeline” and “The Duplex” at Lincoln Center; “Helen” and “Everybody’s Ruby” at the Public Theatre; Manhattan Theater Club’s “The Sirens”; and several productions with the Negro Ensemble Company, such as “Puppet Play,” “Weep Not For Me,” and “In an Upstate Motel.” Additionally, Rashad has done regional theater at venues such as Atlanta’s Alliance Theater and Washington, DC’s Arena Stage.
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Theater direction
In 2007, Rashad tried his hand at directing with Seattle Repertory Theatre’s production of Gem of the Ocean. Later in 2014, he directed a revival of August Wilson’s “Fences” at Princeton, New Jersey’s McCarter Theatre. Rashad continued his focus on the work of August Wilson in 2016 when he directed the playwright’s Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles.
Television career
After playing a regular role on the ABC soap opera “One Life to Live,” Rashad landed her television role in 1984 on the NBC sitcom “The Cosby Show.” The actress played the role of lawyer Clair Huxtable, wife of obstetrician Cliff Huxtable, played by Bill Cosby, and mother of five children. The program ran until 1992 and earned Rashad two Emmy Award nominations. During this time, Rashad appeared in the television films “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”, “False Witness”, “Polly” and “Jailbirds”. She also appeared as Clair Huxtable in four episodes of the sitcom A Different World.
In 1996, Bill Cosby returned to television with the CBS sitcom “Cosby”; the actor tapped Rashad to play his character’s wife, Ruth Lucas. The program ran until 2000. Later, Rashad appeared in an episode of “Everybody Hates Chris” and three episodes of the detective series “Psych”. In 2008, she reprized her Tony-winning role as Lena Younger in a television adaptation of A Raisin in the Sun. Subsequent TV credits included “The Cleveland Show,” “Jean-Claude Van Johnson,” “When We Rise,” “This Is Us,” “Station 19” and a recurring role on “Empire.”
Film career
On the big screen, Rashad made his starring role debut in the 1996 period drama Once Upon a Time… When We Were Colored. This was followed by the comedy “Loving Jezebel” in 1999. In 2010, Rashad appeared in three films: the romantic comedy “Just Wright” with Queen Latifah and Common; the Halle Berry drama “Frankie and Alice”; and Tyler Perry’s “For Colored Girls,” which featured a cast of Janet Jackson, Kerry Washington, Whoopi Goldberg and Anika Noni Rose. Rashad worked with Perry again in 2012 on his romantic drama Good Deeds. Subsequent films include “Gods Behaving Badly,” as well as the sports drama “Creed” and its sequel, “Creed II.” In 2020, Rashad starred in Tyler Perry’s A Fall from Grace, the horror film Black Box,
Personal life
Rashad was married three times. First marriage was in 1972 to dentist William Lancelot Bowles Jr.; The couple had a son and divorced in 1975. Then, in 1978, Rashad married Victor Willis, the original lead singer of the Village People. They divorced in 1982. In 1985, Rashad married former NFL sportscaster and play-by-play announcer Ahmad Rashad, of his adopted family name. He proposed to her during a pregame show for a televised football game on Thanksgiving Day. The following year, they had a daughter, Condola. The pair ended up divorcing in 2001.
