Our regular look at some of the faces which have made the news this week. Above are Bill Cosby (main picture), with John Edwards, Karen Parlour, Earl Spencer and Sir John Stevens.
BILL COSBY
The most successful black comedian in the US struck a transatlantic chord when he made an outspoken attack on the street slang used by many black people.
At a Washington dinner to commemorate a landmark case which ended segregation in US schools, Bill Cosby shocked some by accusing poorer black families of failing to honour the sacrifices made by those who fought for civil rights.
Cosby, born in a Philadelphia ghetto, said that by using "profane" language, black children thought they were hip but were squandering their opportunities and "going nowhere."
And, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, he said the same message applied to youngsters in the UK, such as those at the Lilian Baylis School in south London, where staff are involved in a pilot project to stop pupils using a vocabulary based on a mixture of Creole patois and rappers' slang.
"In London, in places like Brixton, you need to hear this," he said.
In the 1960s, he became the first black man to star in a prime-time network series, I Spy, while the success of his high school sitcom Bill Cosby Show, which ran from 1969 to 1972, smoothed the path of African-American stars such as Oprah Winfrey.
Fame and fortune didn't divert Cosby from his belief in education. He took a break from television to achieve a master's degree in educational psychology at Massachusetts University, and then to complete his doctorate.
He employed his research findings in a cartoon series, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, aimed at instilling moral values in children, and, in 1984, embarked on the phenomenal success of The Cosby Show.
It ran for eight years, watched by record audiences, and made Cosby the highest-paid entertainer in showbiz.
As the upper-middle-class Dr Cliff Huxtable, living with his elegant, brainy lawyer wife in Brooklyn and enjoying a healthy interaction with their five children, Cosby came to symbolise all that is wholesome about family and fatherhood.
Black militants suggested he was perpetuating the myth of social mobility in a still racist society, while others discerned a pattern of quiet subversion of the racial status quo and credited Cosby with breaking down a succession of barriers.
Deliberately, the line between the fictional TV family and Cosby's own was blurred. Cosby also had four daughters and a son - and the Huxtable son Theodore's dyslexia was inspired by Cosby's own boy, Ennis.
Tragedy strikes
Cosby and his wife of 40 years, Camille, gave each of their children names beginning with "E" for excellence.
Ennis Cosby died in a shooting
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This brought more scorn from critics, which stopped abruptly when Cosby, accused of being out of touch with ordinary blacks, saw Ennis become one of the most familiar black American statistics - a young male killed by random violence.
Ennis, who was studying to become a teacher of disabled children, was shot dead on an Los Angeles freeway in January 1997 while changing a flat tyre.
But a nation's sympathy soon turned to ire. Cosby, having denied the claims of a 22-year-old woman that she was his illegitimate daughter, confessed on TV that he had had a one-night stand with the woman's mother.
Tragedy and infidelity served to remind everyone that Cosby was not a fantasy father.
He continues to work for charity, supporting education through donations to colleges and scholarships; he once gave $20m to the mainly black Spelman College in Atlanta.
And perhaps, now that Cosby is seen to be subject to human weakness and the father of a victim of violence, his blast at black communities that fail to exploit the potential of education has acquired a more persuasive authenticity.
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JOHN EDWARDS
The US Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry has chosen his running mate. Senator John Edwards of North Carolina had been favourite for the nomination after a charismatic showing in the spring primaries. The 51-year-old son of a textile worker, Edwards made his fortune as a trial lawyer before being elected to Congress in 1998. "We think this is a dream team," said Kerry. The Republicans will be hoping to turn it into a nightmare come November.
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KAREN PARLOUR
Divorce lawyers described the High Court award of a third of Arsenal footballer Ray Parlour's future earnings to his former wife as "revolutionary". The mother of three of Parlour's children, Karen Parlour, 33, had her personal maintenance increased from £212,000 a year to £406,000. But it seems only the wealthy need worry. Mrs Parlour's lawyers said such settlements would apply only to cases where there was a substantial surplus of income after needs were met.
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Sir JOHN STEVENS
Announcing he'd be retiring next January, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir John Stevens, was applauded for restoring the morale of a force branded institutionally racist by the inquiry into the murder of black teenager Stephen Lawrence. Sir John stepped up community policing and joined officers on night patrols, but said he was still haunted by the failure to bring anyone to justice over the killing of 10-year-old Damilola Taylor.
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Earl SPENCER
Earl Spencer reportedly told the Queen that he was "more than satisfied" by her speech at the official opening of a memorial fountain for Diana, Princess of Wales, at Hyde Park in London. It was the first time the Spencer family and the Windsors had appeared publicly since the Princess's funeral seven years ago - and the Earl's attack on the Royal Family from the pulpit. But after this week's ceremony, Lord Spencer said there "wasn't really" a rift that needed healing.
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Compiled by BBC News Profiles Unit's Chris Jones
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It isn't a language that has anything to do with the credentials of higher education
