There Goes My Social Life (9 page)

The Cosby Show
was so refreshing because it wasn't about race at all. Sure, they showcased the music of Miles Davis, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Duke Ellington, and Dizzy Gillespie. But rather than making a heavy-handed point that America should listen to “black music,” appreciate “black art,” or understand “black culture,” the Huxtables just showcased the things they loved in the context of normal everyday life. The show was about a family. The family was black, yes. But the episodes could appeal to people of any ethnicity. Judging from its massive success, the show did just that. By the time
The Cosby Show
ended, it had become the biggest sitcom hit on American television in two decades. It was the top television show for four years, pulling in 82 million viewers at its height.

I thanked my agent and hung up the phone. Immediately, I picked it back up again. I wanted to shout into the phone, but the dial tone mocked me. I had absolutely no one with whom to share this moment. I was going to be on the show of America's most beloved family, yet I didn't even have one family member to call.

On audition day, I walked in a room and stood in front of a table of people. A couple of the casting directors read from a paper and asked me to act along with them. I read my lines from the script for the role of “Michelle,” Huxtable daughter Denise's friend. As soon as I was finished, I could feel it: I'd nailed my lines. Still, I was thrilled to get the call within an hour. I didn't get a “call back,” meaning that I'd have to come read again. I'd actually gotten the part, was going to meet Bill Cosby, and was going to be on the top-rated show in America.

On the first morning of rehearsal, I looked out of my window and spotted the black Town Car they sent into Manhattan to take me to the set. The brownstone featured at the beginning of each Cosby episode is actually in Manhattan—at 10 St. Luke's Place—right there in the Village where I had spent so many of my days. However, the family was supposed to live in Brooklyn Heights. Filming occurred at an old studio on the southern tip of Brooklyn, because Cosby was adamant that he didn't want the show filmed in Hollywood.

I got into the back seat and watched the city go by beyond the glass. We took the Manhattan Bridge over the East River. On my right I had an excellent view of the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, and on my left I could see Midtown receding from view.

You
'
re gonna do this
, I told myself as I tried to calm my nerves.
This is gonna happen
.
This is the first step
,
so you
'
re not crazy
.
Everybody tells you that you
'
re a dreamer
,
that you
'
re not gonna pull this off
,
and that you can
'
t do it
.
But that
'
s not true
.
You
'
re gonna do it
.
This is happening
. I realized my knee was bouncing nervously and tried to still it.

We drove all the way to Flatbush where what was left of the old Vitagraph studio still stood on what looked like a forgotten block between Locust and Chestnut. Many movies had been filmed at Vitagraph (at one time the world's largest movie production company) since the early 1900s. The place had seen better days.

I met Lisa Bonet first in the stairwell. She was really nice, showed me around, and we became fast friends. Then I met Bill on set. He was dressed casually, and it took me a while to get used to the man whose face was so familiar. I wasn't starstruck—far from it—and he seemed kind and genuinely interested in my life.

“Where do you and your family live?” he asked.

“I live alone,” I said, in a clipped way that didn't invite further questioning. He didn't pry, but neither did he stop the conversation.

“Awful young to be living alone,” he said.

“My parents are addicts, so I don't really . . .” I let the sentence trail off.

We were waiting on a new script from the producers, since they had a last-minute change that required a fast re-write of the script. In our episode, Denise asked Dr. Huxtable to see her friend Michelle—me—about a delicate medical issue she wanted to keep from her mom and dad.

The “medical condition” that she wanted to keep under wraps wasn't specified, which left the viewer to assume that it related to pregnancy. That meant my character, who was in high school, was sexually active, and I was playing the “bad girl.” Dr. Huxtable determined that my problem was simply a bladder infection. He advised me to take better care of myself, but then wondered if his own kids were keeping secrets from him.

On Monday, the actors, directors, and producers had shared notes during the “table read” of the script—called “Denise's Friend”—and the feedback wasn't positive. The secrecy of teenagers was a great, provocative topic, but it wasn't very funny. Bill suggested adding a “family meeting” to the show, which meant the writers had to quickly work on the script and the stage managers had to rearrange everything.

When we got the revised script on the set, we began going through the lines. I knew from the start. The episode was going to be something special. As we went through the lines, the director made sure the cameras were set up properly. I was prepared, but nervous about the filming that we would be doing at the end of the week in front of a live audience of about three hundred people. I had never performed before an audience or done theater. What would it be like to stand in front of people who would respond to my lines immediately? Would it invigorate me, or make me too nervous to remember what I was saying? I almost over-prepared. I had every line down.

When it came time to film, I checked out the outfit the producers had selected for me for the episode: a seafoam green dress with an interesting collar and a brown leather belt that—somehow—connected to my shoulder. The dress was slouchy, no doubt to cause suspicion in the viewers' minds about my character's, well, character. It was loose enough to keep the pregnancy ruse alive.

On the day of filming, Bill became playful—he constantly interrupted the rehearsals to make me laugh or flub my lines. He improvised, joked, and questioned me during the rehearsal, so that my nerves completely evaporated. Director Jay Sandrich allowed things to be relaxed because he knew that's how the comedian thrived. Bill was used to doing things live and coming up with lines spontaneously. He didn't want to constantly go over the lines—so taping could be more off the cuff and energetic. Which was great except it was sometimes hard to follow him. Instead of saying the line on the script, he'd say something totally different. That would surprise me so much that I'd screw up my line, and he'd just laugh. Or I'd say the line, and Bill simply wouldn't reply.

In the silence, I'd doubt myself. “Oh, am I supposed to say something else?” I thought it was my fault, because I was the new kid on the block.

“Oh yeah, that's right,” he'd say. “I'm supposed to say something now.”

He was hilarious. Honestly, I think he was just having fun with the audience while also trying to put me at ease. What should've taken one or two takes frequently took ten. Once I started laughing, it was hard for me to get back into character.

“Bill, please, stop,” I finally said.

Once, amidst all the joking, he pulled me aside, lowered his voice, and said, “You're gonna go a long way. You know what you're doing, you're a very smart girl, and you're very professional.”

That happened in real life—Bill Cosby to Stacey Dash. But there was one fictional moment in the show that touched me almost as deeply. Dr. Huxtable was talking to Michelle about the fact that she'd waited four weeks to seek medical help.

“I don't know your parents,” he said. He was wearing one of his signature sweaters and looked every bit the role of “America's favorite dad.” “All I know is that if any of my children got into trouble or had a problem and felt they couldn't come to my wife or me, I'd have a fit.”

There I was—on a stage in Brooklyn—hearing loving words from a father who was not mine, who was not even a real person. But those words penetrated my heart.

I loved shooting in front of the audience, it turned out. And they seemed to love the episode, especially the newly added “family conference” that Bill had added at the last minute. It began with Cliff telling the kids that they should always feel comfortable coming to their parents if they're in trouble. Everyone nods, agrees, and moves as if the “family meeting” is over. But Cliff doesn't believe they're taking him seriously enough.

What if you got pregnant, he asks.

Theo quips, “Hey, I know it's not me!”

“Okay,” Cliff says. “Let's say it is you!” By this time, the audience is roaring with laughter. “What would you do?”

Theo answers that he'd go to his friend first, because he'd fear his dad would get mad.

“Mad? I'm not going to get mad!” He says this like someone who needs to go to anger management classes, eyes popping. “I'm telling you that I wouldn't get mad . . . Dogs get
mad
. Humans get
angry
!”

The kids turn the tables on their parents and ask some questions of their own. Sondra asks what would happen if Vanessa had a secret relationship with a seventeen-year-old boy; Theo asks what would happen if he took out his dad's car without permission and damaged it. Then Denise asks a question that really cuts to the heart of the “you can tell us anything” idea.

“Mom, I've got one for you. Remember when I spent the night at Jeanette's house a couple of weeks ago?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I didn't spend the night at Jeanette's,” she reveals. “I spent it at Tommy Watkins's!”

Clair, without saying a word, looks like she is going to go over to Tommy Watkins's house herself and teach him a thing or two.

“Are you
angry
?” Denise asks. The audience loved it! Turns out she's kidding, just to rile up her parents.

The episode was so funny and touching because it encapsulated the beauty and complications of family life: kids straining for independence, parents trying desperately to protect them. It demonstrated that the family bond remains strong amidst complications. Unbreakable, solid.

Jay Sandrich won an Emmy for this episode. I was so proud of my work on this show—not only because of its popularity, but because of what
The Cosby Show
represented. The Huxtables didn't conform to stereotype, the characters were varied in their personalities and interests, and the show wasn't even about race. I'm so proud to have been a small part in such a historic and culture-changing series.

In 2014
Black
-
ish
, a show that was supposed to be “
The Cosby Show
for modern times,” debuted. I didn't want to audition for it, but my manager Nathan made me go. He said something about needing to put food on the table. One of the lines in my audition was when a man says to his wife, “Didn't you see
Roots
?”

She says, “Yeah,” but he knows she has really never seen the iconic miniseries about slavery.

“You've never seen
Roots
because you're not all black,” he says. “You're mixed.”

“Yeah, well tell that to my ass and my hair,” she replies.

I put down the script and looked at Nathan. “Really?” Why would they do a show about being black that has such ridiculous stereotypes? It's the twenty-first century. Get on with it. Are we supposed to believe that one's blackness is defined by hair, body type, and television miniseries preferences? Please. The producers of this show are only perpetuating stereotypes: all black people must play the same sports, think the same thoughts, live in the same type of neighborhood, eat the same foods, and watch the same television. (By the way, I don't even get why a channel like BET exists. I understand Telemundo. Spanish is a different language. But BET? We don't speak a different language, so we don't need a special channel. Are we missing a chromosome? Is there something different about our DNA? If you had an all white channel I think all hell would break loose.)

After
Black-ish
debuted, it even had an episode where the oldest son joined the Young Republicans at school to impress a girl. His parents were apoplectic. His dad said, “There are certain things in life that are just true. Fact: The Earth revolves around the Sun. Fact: Two times two is four. And fact: Black people aren't Republicans. We just aren't. We vote for Democrats.” He added, “Sure, the other side may trot out a token black face every now and again, but the fact of the matter is, being a black Republican is something we just don't do.”

The mother also reacted very strongly to the news: “Republican? . . . No! . . . We don't do that, Dre! We are compassionate liberals who believe in tolerance, acceptance, open-”

Then the dad interrupted: “Yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. But we're black, alright? That's all that matters. We're black.”

With its heavy-handed reinforcement of cultural stereotypes,
Black
-
ish
was no
Cosby Show
.

I often think back to how much fun I had on the set with the
Cosby
actors, and even afterward. On the last day of taping, Bill pulled me aside.

“Would you like to come to my house sometime for dinner?” he said. “Camille and I would love to host you.”

I couldn't believe it! One of the most famous men in America was asking me to dinner at his house. It actually choked me up a bit. I figured Bill could tell that I didn't have a male figure in my life, that I was adrift. He was well known for asking the child actors on the show how they were doing academically and taking an interest in their success. He was so lovely to show concern for me—even though I was just there for one episode.

A couple of nights later, I jumped in a cab and went to the Cosby townhouse on the East Side.