On The Cosby Show, Phylicia Rashad played Clair Huxtable, the mother of Sondra, whose real name is Sabrina Le Beauf, but in real life, the two actresses are only 10-years apart in age. In fact, when season one of the sitcom was being filmed, Phylicia was 36-years old and Sabrina was 26-years old.
Despite the age difference, however, the beautiful and talented actresses were able to successfully convince millions of viewers that they were mother and daughter because Clair’s character is a 41-year old mom and Sondra’s is that of a 20-year old college student.
Something even more interesting is that Sondra did not make an appearance on The Cosby Show until the 10th episode of the first season. In fact, her character did not even exist in the pilot episode which is why there is a scene when Clair infamously asks Cliff, “Why do we have four children?” and he funnily responds, “Because we did not want five.”
Nonetheless, when Sondra’s character made her debut on the show, she was very well-received and she definitely helped to make the show one of the greatest and funniest TV sitcoms of all time. Even more, until today, very few people know or even care about the real age difference between Phylicia Rashad and Sabrina Le Beauf because their on-air chemistry as mother and daughter was pure genius!
