[4] Cosby made his film debut starring in Man and Boy (1971) followed by Hickey & Boggs (1972), Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let's Do It Again (1975), A Piece of the Action (1977), Leonard Part 6 (1987), and Ghost Dad (1990).

His dissertation was titled An Integration of the Visual Media Via 'Fat Albert And The Cosby Kids' into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning.

I Spy finished among the twenty most-watched shows that year, and Cosby was honored with three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series.

[45] Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson said it was one of "the rare exceptions when Cosby took off the gloves and blinders, to discuss race in public with candor and discernment".

[48] Throughout the 1960s Cosby pursued a variety of additional television projects and appeared as a regular guest host on The Tonight Show and as the star of an annual special for NBC.

During this time, he reunited with Sidney Poitier starring in Ghost Dad (1990) and appeared in minor roles in Robert Townsend's superhero comedy The Meteor Man (1993), and Francis Ford Coppola's coming of age film Jack (1996).

In 2001, Cosby's agenda included the publication of a new book, as well as delivering the commencement addresses at Morris Brown College,[57] Ohio State University,[58] and at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

[59] Also that year, he signed a deal with 20th Century Fox to develop a live-action feature film centering on the popular Fat Albert character from his 1970s cartoon series.

He started with White Owl cigars, and later endorsed Jell-O pudding and gelatin, Del Monte, Ford Motor Company, Coca-Cola (including New Coke), American Red Cross, Texas Instruments, E. F. Hutton & Co., Kodak, and the 1990 United States Census.

[85][86][87] On February 1, 2000, according to a statement provided by Detective Jose McCallion of the New York County District Attorney's Special Victims Bureau, Lachele Covington, who was 20 years old at the time, filed a criminal complaint against Cosby alleging that on January 28, 2000, at his Manhattan townhouse, he had tried to put her hands down his pants and then exposed himself.

[88] In January 2004, Andrea Constand, a former Temple University employee, accused Cosby of drugging and fondling her; however, in February 2005, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania's District Attorney said there would be no charges due to insufficient credible and admissible evidence.

[95] In a July 2005 Philadelphia Daily News interview, Beth Ferrier, one of the anonymous "Jane Doe" witnesses in the Constand case, alleged that in 1984 Cosby had drugged her coffee and she awoke with her clothes partially removed.

[97] On June 9, 2006, Philadelphia magazine published an article by Robert Huber which gave graphic detail about Constand's allegations, and the similar stories told by Green and Ferrer about how they stated that they too were drugged and sexually assaulted.

[100] On October 16, 2014, as part of a comedy routine in Philadelphia, Hannibal Buress addressed Cosby's legacy of "talk[ing] down" to young black men about their mode of dress and lifestyle.

[107] After Buress's remarks came to the attention of journalist Joan Tarshis, in November 2014,[108] model Janice Dickinson,[109] actress Louisa Moritz,[110] actor Lou Ferrigno's wife Carla,[110] Florida nurse Therese Serignese,[111] Playboy Playmates Valentino[112] and Sarita Butterfield,[113] actress Michelle Hurd,[114] and eleven other women[114] also made accusations of alleged assaults by Cosby committed against them between 1965 and 2004.

[116] The following month, in a Vanity Fair article, model Beverly Johnson alleged that she was drugged by Cosby during a 1986 audition, and that she knew other women with similar accounts.

[123] According to Vox, the stories span "more than five decades" and are "remarkably similar, typically involving the comedian offering a woman a cup of coffee or some sort of alcoholic beverage—which may be spiked with drugs—and allegedly sexually assaulting the victim as she's impaired or unconscious.

In his testimony, Cosby admitted to casual sex with a series of young women involving the recreational use of the sedative methaqualone (Quaalude); he further acknowledged that his dispensation of the prescription drug was illegal.

[147][148][149] After a brief period in the Montgomery County Correctional Facility, Cosby was moved to a state prison, SCI Phoenix in Skippack Township, Pennsylvania, on September 25, 2018, where he was confined to a single cell.

[153] On June 23, 2020, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court agreed to hear a further level of appeal of Cosby's sexual assault conviction based on questions about testimony from a witness being "more prejudicial than probative".

"[155] The following situation was cited: previously in February 2005, District Attorney Bruce Castor declared in a press release that due to insufficient evidence rendering a conviction "unattainable", he "declines to authorize the filing of criminal charges" against Cosby regarding allegations Andrea Constand made against him.

[164] In late 2018, the Christmas song "Baby, It's Cold Outside" was pulled from several radio stations amid controversy that its lyrics allegedly promote sexual predation.

[183] In April 2017, Cosby agreed to be interviewed by the National Newspaper Publishers Association, because, as Andrew Wyatt, his spokesman, stated, "they grew comfortable that the NNPA Newswire would be more interested in 'facts over sensationalism'."

[187] Cosby received an award at the celebration of the 50th-anniversary commemoration of Brown v. Board of Education ruling—a ruling of the U.S. Supreme Court that outlawed racial segregation in public schools.

Later, in May 2004, he made public remarks critical of African Americans who put higher priorities on sports, fashion, and "acting hard" than on education, self-respect, and self-improvement.

"[190] Richard Leiby of The Washington Post reported, "Bill Cosby was anything but politically correct in his remarks Monday night at a Constitution Hall bash commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.

"[197] In a 2008 interview, Cosby mentioned Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Detroit, Oakland, California, and Springfield, Massachusetts among the cities where crime was high and young African American men were being murdered and jailed in disproportionate numbers.

Cosby stood his ground against criticism and affirmed that African American parents were continuing to fail to inculcate proper standards of moral behavior.

Throughout the 1970s Cosby starred in various films including Sidney Poitier's Uptown Saturday Night (1974), and Let's Do It Again (1975), and Neil Simon's California Suite (1978) alongside Richard Pryor.

He charted a number of times on the Billboard Hot 100, including the 1967 single "Little Ole Man (Uptight, Everything's Alright)" from his album Silver Throat: Bill Cosby Sings.