By Special to the Daily World
People magazine reports that actress Clarice Taylor, who played Cliff Huxtable’s mother on ”The Cobsy Show,” died recently at age 93. Taylor earned an Emmy nomination in 1986 for her recurring role as Anna Huxtable on the legendary long-running sitcom.
A performer on the stage and radio, as well as on TV and in film, for more than five decades, the actress was a member of the New York stage group the Negro Ensemble Co. and helped to pave the way for African-American actors in the early 1960s.
That decade, she landed the role of Harriet, David’s grandmother, on ”Sesame Street.” She also starred alongside Liza Minelli in 1970’s ”Tell Me That You Love Me, Junie Moon” and played Grady’s cousin Emma on Sanford and Son and Addaperle, the Good Witch of the North, in the musical ”The Wiz.”
Taylor succumbed to heart failure; she was surrounded by family when she passed on May 31. She is survived by her two sons and five grandchildren.