Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, February 6, 1992 TAG: 9202050252
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANA KENNEDY ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: NEW YORK LENGTH: Long
ON HIS OWN TERMS
Bill Cosby utters just three words as he shuts his dressing room door, turns on an espresso machine and prepares to be interviewed and photographed."I don't pose," he says, pouring a cup of coffee and lighting a cigar.
It may sound like a simple warning. In fact, it's one of many.
Cosby settles into his deep-pile gray sofa, flanked by four rag dolls with black faces and one snow-white teddy bear. His face is unusually grave; the tension in the air remarkably thick.
"Tell me what you want to ask, and we'll see how it goes," says Cosby, slowly measuring his words. "If it doesn't go well, I'll give you a piece of fruit - I'll give you an apple or a pear, and you can be on your way."
If that sounds abrupt, remember Bill Cosby, 54, grew up in a housing project in North Philadelphia. Last year, he earned $113 million, making him the single highest-paid entertainer in the world.
But as the eighth and final season of the groundbreaking "The Cosby Show" draws to a close, Cosby makes it clear that it took more than the easygoing wit and wisdom of Dr. Cliff Huxtable to get this far.
Cosby was the Jackie Robinson of television, breaking the color barrier when he became the first black man to co-star with a white man on the TV series, "I Spy."
Nearly three decades later, he's more visible than ever. He's planning his next series, "You Bet Your Life," to debut next year. His latest book, "Childhood," was published in October; His most recent comedy album, "Bill Cosby: O'Baby!" came out in November.
"What people don't realize is that we are human beings, too," says Cosby, of his struggle with fame.
This is the real Bill Cosby, direct from his dressing room at Kaufman Astoria Studios in Queens. But it's no 30-minute sitcom. It takes awhile to get to the jokes.
"You can yawn if you want to," says Cosby, leaning back in his black Village Vanguard T-shirt and sweatpants and launching into a 14-minute discourse on why he mistrusts the press.
"It's that time in my career when people are looking for the negative. So they send a writer out looking for it. So if you have any sense, you say, `no.' "
Cosby prefers television interviews.
"That way I can control the notes I'm playing," he says. "This way you can color the notes. I don't like to be overplayed or underplayed."
Control is crucial to Cosby. He doesn't easily relinquish it.
"People used to come see me, and I'd show them what we do and what I think is interesting, and then they'd ask me about how much my father drank," he says.
How much Cosby's father drank is not a topic he covers much in such books as "Childhood." The emphasis is on funny anecdotes about Cosby, his brother, Russell, and neighborhood friends he later made famous like Fat Albert.
Cosby is not a celebrity who finds it cathartic to reveal childhood pain. It seems he made his peace with a rocky past by sweetening it for public consumption.
So he's not one to posture before a notebook or camera. He controls the interview by stretching each answer into a lengthy soliloquy.
But once he has control, he softens. He reveals himself on his own terms.
He will tell you what it's like to be famous.
"Camille and I were out at a restaurant the other night, and there must have been five birthdays going on. If I'm not pressured to give autographs, there are things I like to do. I feel I'm just as much a part of the people as anyone else. But I know they see me as a famous person. And as someone who's been a fan myself, I know I'd like it if someone important came around to see me. So I went over to their tables to say hi."
But . . . .
"There are times when I'm at a basketball game, and I've come to watch them play. It is then that I draw the line. I'm not going to sign. Otherwise, I'd never see the event."
Cosby began his career at a club called The Gaslight in Greenwich Village that booked him for $60 a week.
"I never sat and dreamed about being on a marquee," says Cosby. "I wanted to play ball, any kind of ball. Then I wanted to play drums with Miles Davis or John Coltrane. But people kept telling me I was funny.
"They had no Negro stand-up comedy then," Cosby recalls. "But I wasn't about to go out there and do some slow talking or some stereotype. I felt there was a need for something else in terms of images."
He stuck with that philosophy over the years and struck gold with it on "The Cosby Show."
"What we did was give people an alternative," said Cosby, of the sitcom that detailed a middle-class family that happened to be black - not just a black family. "You can go way back with me and see the same thing. Fat Albert was an attempt to entertain and reinforce good values." Values that were not necessarily just white ones.
"To be white and look to the media is one thing," says Cosby. "But to be black, Chinese, Native American, anything other than white, is a whole different canvas."
Cosby is sitting forward on the couch for the first time. His measured, often self-righteous, tone is gone. "When I was young, who did we have but athletes and entertainers to look up to?" he says. "I remember when `Gone With the Wind' came to town. It wasn't starring Clark Gable, it was starring Butterfly McQueen."
Cosby was a pioneer, but believes the trail he forged has grown cold.
"I expected more from the inner cities - I think I expected more from mankind," says Cosby of enduring racial tensions. "That makes me very unhappy."
Does Cosby's $113 million isolate him from racism?
For once, the response is immediate, unrehearsed and unabashedly emotional.
"No, not for a minute," he says, putting his hands to his head. "If anything, I get it more. It hits me in areas that somebody in the law or in another field wouldn't get."
For just a second, Cosby looks truly upset. Then he snaps out of it.
"No, no you don't," he says severely. "This is not what we're going to talk about."
It sounds as if it's time to get some fruit and be booted out. But Cosby surprises. He's suddenly in a great mood.
"I have a lot more youth ahead," he says. "I'm still on course. There may have been mistakes or ups and downs along the way, but I'm still winning the ball game."
He gets up and expansively gestures around the room, like a figure in a fairy tale who places a series of obstacles in your way before showing you the clearing. It seems that if an apple is offered now, it won't be poisonous.
"Not what you expected from an afternoon with a comedian, I bet," Cosby says wryly.
Now the stories he tells are just as long but they're a lot funnier. He grabs your arm for emphasis and beams at the punch lines.
After two hours and counting, not to mention more ground rules than the SALT talks, you can't get Bill Cosby to shut up. After more tales, and a tour of his dressing room, it seems finally time to leave.
But wait!
Cosby remembers something more to show. He goes back to his bathroom area and proudly drags out several framed photographs. They show him playing the horn with Clark Terry.
Cosby invites closer scrutiny of the pictures. They're authentic. He's definitely up there playing. It's no pose.
Could he keep up with the master?
Pause.
"No. Not all the way."
Beat. Sly smile.
"But the man said it was good enough, you know, he said it was good enough."
`The Bill Cosby Show': Two segments air at 8 and 8:30 tonight on WSLS-Channel 10.
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