Bill Cosby: From TV Hero To Fallen US Cultural Icon

A celebrity’s fall from grace is always ugly, but that of Bill Cosby — a once beloved comedian who broke through racial barriers to broadcast a successful black family into white living rooms — is a true gut punch to America.

The Cosby name alone once evoked so much — a treasured father figure, a seemingly model citizen and comic with a gentle, self-deprecating style and playful voice that would go from deep to screeching in search of a laugh.

But accusations from around 60 women, many of them formerly aspiring actresses and models, that he was a calculating, serial sexual predator who plied victims with sedatives and alcohol to bed them have left his career and reputation in tatters.

On Monday the 79-year-old, Emmy-winning actor and Grammy-winning stand-up comedian goes on trial in Pennsylvania for aggravated indecent assault, accused of drugging and then assaulting a woman at his home in 2004.

Dozens and dozens of accusers have alleged that the entertainer exploited his fame to feed them sedatives and alcohol, leaving them powerless to resist his advances.

But the trial in Norristown, just outside Philadelphia is the only criminal case to stick as the vast majority of alleged abuse happened too long ago to prosecute.

Cosby insists that relations were consensual but if convicted, he risks spending the rest of his life behind bars on a minimum 10-year sentence and a $25,000 fine.

The trial cements a stunning fall from grace for an avuncular icon synonymous with squeaky clean humor and social progress, who once embodied the American dream.

Today, Cosby cuts a forlorn figure, deserted by celebrity pals and left legally blind, he says, from glaucoma.

On a pre-trial public relations offensive, he suggested that racism may have played a role, in a radio interview at times rambling and confused.