Cosby Show Mother Actress Clarice Taylor Dies
The matriarch that we all grew to love as she mothered Bill Cosby’s character on The Cosby Show, has died. Clarice Taylor died on Monday of heart failure at the age of 93.
The Harlem native was most known for her Emmy-nominated role as Anna Huxtable, Dr. Cliff Huxtable’s mother on The Cosby Show.
Taylor also had a recurring role on Sesame Street as the grandmother to the character David; she played the Good Witch in the original cast of The Wiz; she starred as Grady’s cousin Emma on Sanford and Son and appeared in Clint Eastwood’s movie Play Misty for Me, just to name a few roles.
For more than five decades Taylor was a fixture on the stage, radio, television and film, and helped pave the way in the early 1960s for African-American actors. She was one of the original members of the Negro Ensemble company.
Taylor leaves behind two sons and five grandchildren.
(Photo: Joseph Marzullo/Retna Ltd.)