Rudith Lillian "Rudy" Huxtable is a fictional character who appears on the American sitcom The Cosby Show (1984–1992). Portrayed by actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, Rudy is the youngest child of Cliff and Clair Huxtable. First appearing alongside her family in the pilot episode "Theo's Economic Lesson", which premiered on September 20, 1984, Rudy matures from a precocious five-year-old girl into a teenager longing for independence throughout the course of the series' eight year-long run.
Created by comedian Bill Cosby, Rudy was intended to be a boy; actor Jaleel White had been considered the first choice for the role until Knight Pulliam impressed the show's producers once auditions had finally been opened to girls. Having been opposed to the idea of featuring young children, particularly young girls, on his show because he feared that they would prove difficult to work with, Cosby was hesitant to cast Knight Pulliam due to her young age at the time. However, he was ultimately impressed by both her maturity and ability to memorize lines, subsequently re-writing the character into a younger, female role but refused to change her name from the more masculine-sounding "Rudy". By the second season, Cosby began entrusting Knight Pulliam with more mature material. Rudy was inspired by Cosby's youngest daughter Evin.
Both the character and Knight Pulliam's performance immediately garnered widespread acclaim from entertainment critics. Knight Pulliam was nominated for an Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series in 1986, becoming the youngest performer to be nominated for an Emmy Award; the scene in which she lip-syncs to Ray Charles' "Night Time is the Right Time" has garnered significant attention. Her role as Rudy eventually established her as a child star. However, critics have observed that Knight Pulliam's once-reliable "cuteness" began to falter and grow less funny towards the show's latter seasons as both the actress and her character aged.
Role Rudy (Keshia Knight Pulliam) is introduced as the five-year-old youngest child of Cliff (Bill Cosby), an obstetrician, and Clair Huxtable (Phylicia Rashad), a lawyer; the character's full name is revealed to be "Rudith Lillian Huxtable" in the first-season episode "Theo and the Joint". She is the youngest sister of Sondra (Sabrina Le Beuf), Denise (Lisa Bonet), Theo (Malcolm-Jamal Warner) and Vanessa (Tempestt Bledsoe). In early episodes, Rudy attends an unidentified grammar school and owns a teddy bear she calls "Bobo" and a pet goldfish named Lamont. Rudy also proves to be a gifted football player, becoming known for her speed and endurance as a member of the Pee-Wee League football team.
Several episodes revolve around the Huxtable family entertaining Rudy and her young friends, such as sleepovers and dinners. Her childhood best friend is Peter Chiara (Peter Costa), a quiet and shy boy who lives in a house across the street from the Huxtables. Rudy eventually befriends Kenny (Deon Richmond), also known as "Bud", who often expresses a romantic interest in her and sometimes competes for her affection against Rudy's other love interests; the two characters also frequently debate each other about gender roles.
Several Rudy-centric storylines explore the character's struggles of being the youngest member of her large family. Over the course of the series, Rudy matures from a young child into a teenager, to the point of which she starts dating. Cliff sometimes fears that his youngest daughter is growing up too fast, struggling with the realization that soon she will cease to be "his little girl". Rudy's hunger for independence and maturity sometimes gets her into trouble, such as when she attends an underage club against her parents' wishes and is ultimately punished for her defiance. By the end of the series, a 13 year-old Rudy is the only Huxtable child still living in her parents' home full-time in the absence of her four older siblings, all of whom have successfully moved out having either gotten married or pursued higher education.
Development
Creation and casting Comedian Bill Cosby began developing The Cosby Show partially because he was not impressed with popular family sitcoms airing at the time, several of which he felt were too reliant on children disrespecting and disobeying their parents without suffering serious consequences. Cosby was opposed to the idea of his show featuring children altogether, preferring to create and star in a series about a married, childless couple instead. When executive producers Marcy Carsey and Tom Werner convinced Cosby to develop a sitcom about a nuclear family, the comedian decided his show would feature a family of children who were obviously intelligent, "but their parents were always smarter and—most importantly—in charge." Written as a male character, Rudy was initially conceived as the youngest of only four children, two girls and two boys. Cosby envisioned the youngest Huxtable child as a young boy who idolizes his older brother Theo, giving him the typically masculine name "Rudy" and intending to base the character on his own sons. When casting his television children, Cosby insisted that none of the candidates be younger than 10 years-old due to challenges he had experienced working alongside child actors prior. He warned the producers "We'll be shooting for the rest of our lives if we have a little kid!" However, Carsey and Werner believed that Cosby had proven too gifted at working with children to avoid featuring them on the show altogether, and eventually convinced the comedian to audition a few six-year-old actors for the then-male role of Rudy. After first auditioning in 1984, actor Jaleel White was at one point considered to be the top contender for the role, so much so that his agent advised his family to start preparing to relocate to New York, where The Cosby Show was scheduled to begin filming; White's family had already begun packing and researching apartments within the area. However, the producers still wanted to audition a few more children for the role at the last minute, one of whom was four-year-old actress Keshia Knight Pulliam, who Werner had discovered in a then-recent television commercial for Del Monte canned corn. Knight Pulliam's professional acting experience at the time had included advertising baby products for Johnson & Johnson and appearing in several television commercials. She had already made her television debut as a series regular on the children's television show Sesame Street, on which she had appeared for two seasons.
Although Cosby eventually became open to the idea of young children appearing on his show, he still insisted that they not cast "little girls" because he had typically acted opposite child actresses while filming several commercials for Jell-O and feared repeating himself or appearing redundant. Casting a boy in the role eventually proved difficult so the auditions were slowly opened up to girls, prompting one of the casting directors to sneak Pulliam into one of the auditions without Cosby's prior knowledge. During one of her first screen tests, director Jay Sandrich recalled that Knight Pulliam struggled to maintain eye contact with him and appeared to be constantly distracted by one of the television monitors. When Sandrich questioned her behavior, the actress gestured towards the screen and said "That’s me! How can you make me on the TV?" Knight Pulliam's curiosity greatly impressed Sandrich to the point of which he immediately short-listed the actress, replacing White as top choice.
White recalled being present to witness Knight Pulliam's last-minute audition, which the network had previously assured him was merely "a formality"; Warner and Bledsoe were also in attendance to audition for the roles of Theo and Vanessa, respectively, as well as NBC president Brandon Tartikoff and Cosby himself. Over the course of six hours, the producers asked each finalist to make them laugh. When the producers hand-picked the finalists, White was one of several actors who returned home upon not being selected. According to Sandrich, Cosby agreed with his decision regarding Knight Pulliam's casting, explaining, "once Bill saw her, there was just no way she couldn't be on the show". Although Cosby was initially hesitant to add such a young actor to the cast, he admitted to being impressed by Knight Pulliam's intelligence and ability to follow instructions, despite her young age. Cosby refused to change the character's name, insisting that the name "Rudy" was equally as suitable for a girl as it is for a boy. White would eventually become best known for portraying Urkel on the sitcom Family Matters. Despite dubbing this experience his "tragic auditioning story", he explained "I’m grateful that things worked out the way they did; I think it put a little more money in my pocket."
Portrayal In addition to changing the character from male to female by impressing the producers, Knight Pulliam's casting as Rudy also affected Theo's role, who ultimately became the only son among four sisters, resulting in the Huxtables mirroring Cosby's own family. Rudy is believed to have been based on Cosby's daughter Evin. The Huxtable household eventually grew once eldest sister Sondra was introduced in later episodes on, making Rudy the youngest of five children instead. During the first few seasons, Knight Pulliam had to learn and memorize her lines phonetically because she had not yet learned how to read. Her parents James and Denise often helped the actress memorize her material. Additionally, she was privately tutored on the set of The Cosby Show. Both Knight Pulliam and her character were considered to be personal favorites of Cosby. Calling him "real funny", Knight Pulliam particularly enjoyed when Cosby would venture away from the script in order to make his cast mates laugh. Cosby would patiently advise Knight Pulliam on her acting and reward her with high fives when he was impressed by her performance. On other occasions, he would playfully "steal" some of her dialogue. Describing the young actress as "unbelievable", Cosby recalled that "People gravitated to her ... We never had a problem. Nobody ever had to come down from wherever they were observing and get the child and stop her from crying." Knight Pulliam and Cosby's relationship extended off screen; the actress recalled that she and the comedian "had a competition going on to see who would do a better job at lip-syncing ... That was our little inside thing. I think I did a better job." Knight Pulliam believes "There was no better foundation than to work with the talented cast with Mr. Cosby leading the way."