Anthony Anderson

Meanwhile, Anderson and writing partner Adam Glass had been working on a big leap back into the world of television for the portly 270-pound actor: an idea and then a pilot episode for a weekly sitcom, starring Anderson and based in large part on his own experiences after he moved back in with his parents after college. Finally, after three years of meetings, the WB network signed on and premiered All About the Andersons in 2003. The pay phone and padlocked refrigerator resurfaced as plot elements in the show, although new characters (such as an eight-year-old son) were introduced and other details altered. Critics and audiences gravitated toward Anderson's enthusiastic personality, but the series suffered from uneven scripts. People opined that "the show gets close to a kind of truth that it's not really brave enough to confront," and it was canceled after a year.

Anderson bounced back easily, starring in the films Hustle & Flow and My Baby's Daddy, and signing on to appear in at least 10 episodes of a crime drama, The Shield, on the FX cable network in 2005. That marked a new challenge for the actor; he was set to take on his first dramatic television role, as a former drug dealer whose claims to have reformed were questionable. Happily married with two daughters and a son, Anderson was an unlikely candidate for the Hollywood rumor mill, and a rape charge leveled against the actor by a Memphis woman in 2004 was thrown out by a judge who termed the accuser's testimony some of the most suspicious he had ever heard. Continuing to expand his reach and hone his technique, Anderson seemed set to remain a fixture of both large and small screens in years to come.