Phylicia Rashād Is 72 & Looks As Gorgeous As Ever Nowadays

Jun 16, 2021 by apost team

Actress, singer and stage director, Phylicia Rashād, is best known for her portrayal of Claire Huxtable on the sitcom “The Cosby Show.” However, Rashād made history in 2004 for being the first black woman ever to win a Tony Award. She won the honor for her role in “A Raisin in the Sun.” The actress has had an incredibly successful career, and it’s not over yet. 

In both 2019 and 2020, Rashād was nominated for the Primetime Emmy award for outstanding guest actress for her performance in the series “This is Us.” She was most recently honored with the NAACP award for outstanding supporting actress in a motion picture for her role of Grandmother Journey in “Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey.”

Early Life and Education

Rashād was born in Houston, Texas, on June 19, 1948. She is the second of four children born to father Andrew Arthur Allen and mother Vivian Ayers Allen. Rashād’s mother is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated poet, and her father was a dentist. A couple of her siblings also went into the entertainment business as well.

Rashād’s older brother, Andrew Arthur “Tex” Allen, Jr., went on to become a jazz musician. While her sister, Debbie Allen, was a dancer, actress, and television producer and director. When she was growing up, Rashād’s family moved to Mexico, where she learned to speak fluent Spanish. 

Rashād graduated magna cum laude with a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts degree in theater from Howard University in 1970. While studying there, she was initiated into the Alpha Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha, which is a sorority. In 2021 the university made her dean of the fine arts college. 

Rashād’s first television role was playing a character on the popular daytime soap opera “One Life to Live” in 1983. From 1984 to 1992, she was on “The Cosby Show,” and her portrayal of mother and wife, Claire Huxtable, is still her most signature role to this day.

Rashād told Bustle Magazine, “I loved those years. I was thinking about it just yesterday morning. It was such a creative time, and a collaborative time. It was a high, high time. It was a great time. And it gave people in the world a lot.” The series is what made Rashād a household name and also typecast her into the role of a mother.

After “The Cosby Show,” Rashād went on to guest star as many character’s mothers on multiple TV shows, such as the series “Psych” and “Everybody Hates Chris.” She also reprised her role as the mother in the screen adaptation of “A Raisin in the Sun” from 2008.

Rashād’s most recent film credit is for her role as Libba Gardner in the Pixar animation film “Soul.” Libba is the mother of the movie’s main character, Joe Gardner, who has his soul trapped in the wrong body by mistake and tries to get back to his own life.

America’s Mother

When asked by Bustle Magazine about her role in the 2020 horror film “Black Box,” where she played another role as a mother, Rashād explained that her performance drew from her own experience as a mother and was not racially motivated. “In mothering, I didn’t think about myself as being a Black mother. I’m a mother. I didn’t think about my children being Black children; I think of my children being children,” said Rashād.

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Rashād explained that she doesn’t need to make the distinction because, “The ethnicity is obvious — it’s in our food, it’s in the music we listen to, it’s in the books we read, it’s in the way we live, it’s in the company we keep and the dances that we do. I don’t have to make a conscious point about it, because I know who I am.”

Rashād also spoke with Bustle about her own mother and gave some insight into her personal philosophy. “My mother taught me many, many things. And one of the things my mother would teach us as children is that inner reality creates the outer form,” said Rashād. The actress must have received her positive attitude from her mother. This positivity and warmth is what makes Rashād excel at playing motherly characters.

She continued, explaining that her mother used to say: “‘You know what the mathematician’s job really is — it’s to bring the problem to its simplest form.’” Rashād added, “I love my mom, but it’s true isn’t it?” This is great advice about living in the moment and not becoming overwhelmed by the details of every difficult situation.

Forever Young

These days, Rashād is looking incredible for being nearly 73 years old. The legendary actress has been a vegetarian for most of her life. In 1992 Rashād told The New York Times that, “(She) believes abstinence from meat gives her greater stamina and sense of spiritual well-being.” A healthy plant-based diet must be her secret to looking this fantastic, as well as her ever-loving and positive outlook.

What do you think of how Rashād looks now? Would you ever try an all plant-based diet? Let us know, and be sure to send this on to your loved ones.