15 Actors Who Foolishly Turned Down Career-Making TV Roles

4. Whitney Houston Was Almost Sondra Huxtable - The Cosby Show

Whitney Houston took the world by storm from her emergence in the mid-1980's, to her unfortunate death in 2012. While she is known worldwide for her singing voice, it could just as easily have been because of her acting ability as well. In the early 80's, Houston auditioned and was offered the role of Sondra Huxtable in one of the most well-known sitcoms, The Cosby Show. Right before signing on the show, she opted to focus on her music career full time instead of making room for an acting career. "So we gather in this room and there are kids from New York and Los Angeles and they are all signing their contracts, and this girl who we brought from New York said "I can't sign this contract and I said "Why?" She said, "Well, I want to be a singer. I can't be in every show. I have to be in every tour," said Jay Sandrich, director of the first three seasons of the show in an interview with the Daily Mail. Had Houston not become such a stoic figure in the music industry, her risk could have easily been a foolish one, but fortunately for her, she made it big before her tragic fall from grace and untimely death. Perhaps if she'd taken a different career path, her life might have turned out differently, particularly with the grounding influence of Bill Cosby around her.