We wrote and filmed four episodes
before the "Cosby Show” show went on the air. My writing partner, Korby Siamis, and I were
absolutely convinced that “The Cosby Show” was going to be the biggest flop of
all time. Here’s a cartoon she drew and
sent to our agent, Bernie Weintraub. She
drew a sinking ship-- “The S.S. Cosby”-- and stick figures labeled Korby and
Karyl swimming back to L.A. Why? The cast was wonderful; the writing was top
notch. But live in the studio, the
audience reaction seemed luke warm. They
didn’t seem like they were loving it. No
question the writers were living in a bubble (true on all shows) but did our
bone-weary exhaustion completely color our perception? The feminist in me thought who was going to believe Claire is an
attorney AND cooks a full meal for six in high heels every night, keeps the
house clean with no maid, and why is she not completely and totally exhausted
like the rest of the moms in America? Who is going to believe she’s never mad at
Cliff, no matter what he does? Claire’s a mom who's having it all and she’s got a briefcase that looks empty. So fake!
Day One of “The Cosby Show” began
at lunch on the 65th floor of 30 Rock in an all glass private party room
adjoining the famous Rainbow Room. This was
my 12th year a writer and I already knew the First Day is the Best Day
on any TV show because nobody knows anybody yet, so nobody hates anybody yet,
etc., etc. It’s downhill after today. Still, the views from here are fantastic. Truth be told, that’s why I took this job. Not to bob and weave for a comedy superstar
(been there, done that), certainly not to stay up all night writing joke after
joke till I want to KILL THE PERSON WHO IS KEEPING ME AWAKE! DISCLOSURE: I took this job for 1. A free trip to New York, all expenses
paid. 2.
To have fun in New York 3. The $$$$.
4. To get a break from my rebellious teenage son.
It was a gorgeous July day. Spectacular views with all of New York at our
feet, literally. We were gathering for a
First Table Reading of our script with Bill and cast. This would be the first day of everybody
meeting everybody else. There were two
long tables. One table had a script set
at each place: our script, Korby’s and my perfect script, a script so wonderfully written it would be filmed First. On the other
table was a bar mitzvah- worthy spread of deli delights on silver platters. There was a silver coffee urn, fine china and
pink tablecloths! A floral centerpiece! It doesn’t get any nicer! I love my job (at least so far)!
A few NBC
executives were milling around along with the William Morris agents (who had
packaged the show), Tom Werner and Marcy Carsey (exec producers), and a reporter
from TV Guide. We met our line producer,
Caryn Mandabach, who was around thirty and extremely pregnant. The child actors and their parents were there. Gorgeous kids have gorgeous parents. Phylicia Rashad, who was going to play Bill’s wife, was just charming and went
around introducing herself and asking us about ourselves. She loved our script! We loved her.
How could you not? Everybody we
met complimented us on our script. We
were the writing stars of the day! “The
Cosby Show” will appreciate my writing. Yay!
Everyone was mingling and nibbling, and NIBBLING.
An hour goes by and we’re sick of nibbling
and smiling at each other. I was already
tired, having arrived at 6 AM on the red-eye. Everyone’s looking over everyone else’s
shoulder and keeping an eye out for the man of the (no-longer-lunch) hour, Bill
Cosby.
Suddenly everybody in the room
perked up. That could only mean one
thing in show biz: the star is in the building.
Cosby enters with his longtime agent, David Brokaw, over an hour late. No smiles.
No apologies. Ouch!
As Cosby made
his way around the room, he could have just stepped from the pages of GQ. His silk shirt and linen jacket exuded style
and star power. He wears a bulky sterling
silver ID bracelet engraved with the words “Camille’s Husband.” I’m wondering, He needed a reminder? And why did he have to spoil the picture with
the stinky old wet cigar? What is
with men? Even unlit, don’t they know
cigars stink? Don’t they care they’re
driving people away, especially me?
After
Bill sat down, everybody quickly took a seat at the table. The director, Jay Sandrich, welcomed everyone
and went around the table first introducing the actors and then the writers. It was like the first day of Camp Success and
everybody was smiling and happy to be there on full scholarship.
Cosby was reserved to the point of
being almost not friendly. I tried not
to take it personally even though I had fantasized he’d immediately get a kick out of me and think I was cool. When you’re a major star, everyone wants to
be your friend and you have to be careful who you welcome into your inner
circle. We also knew Cosby had wanted
black writers on the show. Carsey and
Werner hadn’t found a black writer yet, but were still actively looking. The title of Producer (which should have been my title) was being held in
reserve in case a qualified black writer materialized. For now, the first “Cosby Show” writing staff of
four were one hundred percent white, seventy-five percent Jewish, and fifty percent
female. I hoped Cosby wasn’t going to
hold that against us. However, if I had
created a show starring a woman about her life as a woman, I’d be mad if they only
hired men to write it. I’d be furious.
Jay Sandrich
had directed my second “Mary Tyler Moore “episode, “WJM Tries Harder,” and
other episodes of mine over the years. He was
very gracious in introducing us and praised our script. “They perfectly capture the voices…” blah blah blah.” The reading began. Jay read the stage directions aloud and then
the actors jumped in. It was the first
time we had heard our script on its feet and it was pretty exciting. It’s very gratifying to hear the little
chuckles and laughs along the way. Everyone seemed pleased.
Korby and
I had lifted the theme of our script, “You’re Not a Mother Night,” from one of
Cosby’s most enduring monologues where he gives his long-suffering wife a night
out at a fancy restaurant. Claire
automatically cuts Bill/Cliff’s meat out of habit from excessive mothering. Back home after dinner they wind up dancing romantically
together in the bedroom, whereupon Bill says, “Let’s get it on.” They kiss and we fade out. End of episode.
Keshia Knight Pulliam, who was five, sat next to Tom Werner,
who was thirty-five. Like a nice daddy, he shared his
script with her and pointed to each word she should read aloud. She was completely adorable. Everybody loved her. Malcolm Jamal Warner was perfect and seemed to
have already memorized his lines. All the
actors gave it their best with one exception: Bill Cosby. As the reading went on, Cosby began to mumble
his lines into his lap. He was visibly
unhappy and barely projecting his voice.
Obviously Cosby was the only one
in the room who hadn’t read the script beforehand. Everyone exchanged furtive glances of alarm. The reporter from TV Guide feverishly took
notes! Eventually, just to make sure we
picked up on his displeasure; Bill shoved his entire cigar into the side of his
cheek so that only a few inches stuck out. His line readings became indecipherable. I started getting heart palpitations. I couldn’t wait for the reading to be over so
I could throw myself out the 65th story window onto 50th
Street. By Fade Out, the Wrath of Cosby permeated
the room. There was polite applause, but
the director was quick to announce that there were “a few kinks in the script”
that needed to be worked out. "Perfect, but with kinks?" That's a new one.
When you
sign on to staff write a new TV show, you never know if that job will be a dream
or a disaster. For instance, when we
signed on to staff writer Tony Randall’s “Love Sidney,” the fired writers from
the previous season told me, “Tony Randall's
a maniac and a monster. There’s
constant rewrites, no days OR nights off, so if you’re taking the job just to
see New York, forget it. You’re never
leaving the Writer’s Room.” We took the
job anyway. Tony turned out to be a
doll. I saw New York and had the time of
my life. It turned out the previous
season, Tony’s wife had been gravely ill, so Tony can be forgiven for his uptightness. His anger was temporary. I realized you never know the pressures that
go on in another person’s life that can turn them into a Gila monster and you, his lunch.
Like
everyone in America, I loved the stand-up Cosby, the “I Spy” Cosby and the
irrepressible Jell-O Cosby. But there
was a new Cosby, a late night talk show guest - Cosby who was a snarling
preacher. He was scary. I told myself maybe Reverend Cosby was grumpy
because he needed his own sitcom. Cosby
wasn’t doing “The “Cosby Show” for the money.
He already had all the money in the world. IMHO Cosby was doing a sitcom because it was
the biggest pulpit he could find. Reverend
Cosby had a message and he wanted America to hear it. I could totally relate because I write for
the same reason. I hoped and prayed, now
that Cosby had a sitcom bully pulpit, he’ll morph back into the Jell-O
Cosby.
A private
meeting was called post haste with Cosby, Brokow, Carsey, Werner, Sandrich, and
our exec producer/head writer whom I’ll call Geeky. All of us little people were sent out into the
hall like schoolchildren while the grown-ups held their secret talks. If Geeky doesn’t defend our script, Korby and
I will go from stars to schmucks in thirty minutes flat. It was all in the hands of Geeky. Heaven help us.
The upshot of the private confab is
that Bill had “serious problems” with our episode. He had an idea of how to “fix” our script, but
a new set will have to be built. Karyl
and Korby’s script is set aside and a re-write on the next almost written script – will begin.
A script by (surprise, surprise) Geeky.
Bill’s “improvement” on our script?
Instead of a restaurant, Bill takes
Claire to a hotel room and the dinner is brought via room service. That way, Bill reasoned, sex can take place
immediately following the meal. Really? As a woman and mom, if my husband gave me a
night out away from mothering, I hope we wouldn’t spend it hidden away in some
hotel room eating notoriously terrible Room Service food just so we can
conveniently have sex after dinner. I
would be furious, thinking I hunted for the perfect dress, got my hair done, and got waxed SO HE COULD
HIDE ME IN A HOTEL ROOM?! This hotel
room idea was a man’s fantasy of what a woman/mom wanted, but it was actually what the man wanted. And the man was my boss.
More bad
news for me: The Cosby Show wasn’t
going to be shot at Rockefeller Center because “Saturday Night Live” takes over
the studio. Been there, done that. We were going to be working out of Brooklyn. I HATE working in the middle of nowhere. PROOF: In my previous career as a dress
designer, I quit a perfectly good job because I had to leave Manhattan to work
in a factory in Long Island City.
NBC Studios
Brooklyn was a decrepit brick building in the heart of a run-down Orthodox
Jewish neighborhood. Midwood, Brooklyn is
famous for only one thing: It is the birthplace of Woody Allen. Is he still
living there? No, of course not. He moved away and for good reason: There were
no decent restaurants, no fashion boutiques, none of the New York big city
sights and sounds I had taken this job for.
Like on all
new shows, the offices were makeshift and temporary. There were never any actual offices for us to work in. Over the years I’ve worked in myriad hellholes
including trailers, dressing rooms, hotel rooms, and once in the back of a
speeding truck. Our producer had rented two
apartments to use for offices in a pre WWII residential building near NBC. The groaning elevator took around two years
to go up two floors and reeked of Ben Gay and matzo balls. The tiny dark living room was set up with a card
table and steel folding tin chairs: our ad hoc Writer’s Room. So inspirational, especially the previous
tenant’s granny-like wallpaper! Caryn, Tom
and Marcy had the apartment above us along with the secretarial pool and mountainous
piles of office supplies. A fire hazard
waiting to happen.
The desks
and typewriters were rented and they looked it.
The secretaries had a new-fangled thing that only one secretary knew how
to use and nobody would dare touch -- a computer.
Instead of the Empire State Building
and the stunning Manhattan panorama, my view was of Avenue M, the main drag,
with its ancient kosher butcher shops, candy stores and low-end baby
boutiques. Instead of spotting
fashionable women dashing in and out of Saks Fifth Avenue, I would watch the
prudently dressed Orthodox Jewish moms in their wigs and white tights with
their enormous broods of children in tow marching to Yeshiva school. I think: This
is the cult branch of my religion and like all religions it’s about the
subjugation of women. These are the
thoughts that float through my mind while writing comedy.
Tuesday
we assembled on the dark, freezing NBC sound stage for a cast reading of the new first Cosby episode. We writers had worked past two AM writing Geeky’s
script in a sub-zero conference room in NBC 30 Rock. Isn’t a freezing room a form of torture? This is why I know I wouldn’t last two days at
Gitmo. I hate being cold and I hate
being tired and, guess what? I’m both
and I haven’t been on the job one week.
To those former bosses who have accused
me of having an "attitude problem," I say, Fuck You! Fuck you for keeping me up all night because you didn’t think the script was funny
enough! I guarantee you I was funnier at
eleven than I am at one AM. Why can’t you
make a fuckin’ decision?! But we don’t
get to go home till the executive producer, the King of All Comedy declares the royal script sufficiently funny. So we’re being
punished with sleep deprivation for being not funny enough. Happens
on EVERY show. Everything is taking
twice as long as it should. My bosses are always the kings and queens of comedy and we, their mere court jesters. Been there, done that. The thrill was gone. Way.
The
“Cosby Show” had arranged for a Town Car to pick the writers up in Manhattan and deliver us to Hell every day.
There was BabyCakes, Geeky, Tom Werner, Korby, me and our driver, Jupee,
from India. We were Jewish sardines in a Crown
Victoria. As we emerged from the Midtown
Tunnel I took a wistful last glance at my beloved Statue of Liberty. I said a silent goodbye to her and to the
beauty of Manhattan. Soon we were at NBC
in Brooklyn. We went from the hot July
sun into the dark, dank mildew-y freezing NBC studio. There were the usual bleachers set up` across
from the familiar Huxtable household set.
Our group had grown since yesterday. Our numbers now included stagehands and wardrobe
people. New York Child Protective Services
laws mandate that besides a parent or guardian for each child actor, a social
worker and a tutor must be on set at all times.
Bill had
an entourage of two: A personal chauffeur and valet who held Bill’s cigar for him while he
was acting, and Bill’s teenage son, Ennis, who was a “gofer.” Ennis was a tall skinny kid of sixteen. He was shy and, like everybody else, seemed a
little intimidated by his dad. It must
be difficult if your real dad is everybody’s fantasy dad. Celebs’ kids are notoriously screwed up and
spoiled, but Ennis exuded good upbringing.
He was a lovely kid. Sadly, ten
years later Ennis was murdered in a random robbery on an LA freeway off-ramp.
The cast
reading went well. Cosby was more
engaged than when he was reading our script. He only swallowed a quarter of his cigar! Naturally, Geeky was hailed as the show’s savior. He stood up and took a big exaggerated bow
while everyone applauded wildly. Did Geeky
share the credit or acknowledge those of us writers who lost sleep making his good
script great? He did not. Not a peep. So now I return the favor by omitting his name.
After the
reading there was a break before rehearsal.
Bill/Cliff’s doctor’s office set, which didn’t exist in the abbreviated
pilot presentation, had been built and the producers wanted to show it to
him. The writers went to see it,
too. Bill was playing a gynecologist,
but when he saw the stirrups on the examining table he winced. Apparently he was only thinking of Cliff being
a cute baby-deliverer but neglected to contemplate the yucky lady parts place
where babies came from. He had the prop
man remove the stirrups immediately.
BabyCakes
and I were poking around backstage when Bill came by on his way to his dressing
room. “Ah, my writers! Gotta minute? Let’s talk about some stories.” He seemed fairly upbeat. Maybe yesterday was an anomaly. I was nervous as we followed Bill backstage
in the dark, through a labyrinth of giant black curtains.
Bill’s
dressing room was tiny, old and cold, with exposed brick like a tenement. Cosby obviously hadn’t personalized it
yet. There were no pictures or telegrams
or the typical things you’d find in an actor’s lair. We sat across from Bill on a threadbare pink
satin piano bench that was wedged into an alcove. I immediately took out my notebook and pen,
in case any good story ideas got pitched. Since I had failed to win Bill over on day
one, I was hoping this was my second chance.
Bill sees
my pen and says, “Don’t bother with that – let’s just talk a little and get acquainted.” I thought, Great. I put down my pen. Bill asks, “You’re four- eleven, right?” Turns out, so was Bill’s mother! Cosby likes
short ladies! I’m IN! “I’m going to call you ‘Legs’,” he
declared. I took it as a compliment.
BabyCakes,
unable to let the attention fall on anyone else for too long, launched into his
I’m just a first-time writer and humble
country boy show. He says with wide-
eyed wonder, “I cannot believe I’m sitting here with Bill Cosby! I was only in Hollywood for one month! I’m from Podunk. If a guy like me wanted to learn about jazz,
where would he start?” Cosby’s love of
jazz is well known. Was it shameless
pandering or genuine interest on BabyCakes part? It didn’t matter. Bill completely perked up at the thought of schooling
this goofy-cute and funny young man in the nuances of Dizzy Gillespie et al. In my mind, I rolled my eyes. There’s one on every show just like there is in
every office and every classroom. They’re
not bad guys. They’re young, attractive,
fun and they have an uncanny talent for getting ahead in this world. BabyCakes was just the newest! BabyCakes’ greatest desire was to be “SFL”-- meaning,
“set for life.” A man in his late 20s
was planning his retirement.
Cosby turns
his attention to me and asks what other shows I’ve written. Before I can begin BabyCakes interrupts and
says, “She knows Richard Pryor. She
wrote a ‘Sanford and Son’ with him! She won
an Emmy with Richard for writing on the first two Lily Tomlin specials.” BabyCakes was telling Cosby that Other black comics liked Karyl and Bill
should too… or something.
Whatever BabyCakes intention, it
backfired. Upon hearing the name Richard
Pryor, Bill’s attitude completely changed. Just as he had done the day before at
Rockefeller Center, Bill could barely speak.
He stared at his knees and said very softly, “No… like… dir-ty talk. “ Then the unlit wet cigar went all the way into
the cheek and I knew I was shit after all.
BabyCakes, ever the eager beaver, jumps in,
“Got any story ideas, sir?” Cosby was in
charge of accepting or rejecting story ideas, so finding a story Bill liked was
a big leg up on a script assignment. “Yes
I do,” said Bill, whereupon he put his hands behind his head, looked at the
ceiling and rattled off a slew of absolutely fabulous story ideas. Some ideas were kernels, others more, but all
eventually became scripts. BabyCakes and
I were writing as fast as we could, but BabyCakes took dictation like an ace stenographer
on speed. I’d never seen anything like
it. At that moment I realized, if you could write fast enough, you could become
the star writer on this show because Cosby himself would tell you what to write. The best Cosby writer was Bill Cosby.
Wednesday
afternoon there’s a run-through on the stage so the writers can see what’s
working in the script and what isn’t.
Secretaries, interns, parents and guardians of child actors, extras and
stand-ins are summoned to take up seats in the bleachers and to laugh where
it’s funny. The writer’s personalized
director’s chairs hadn’t come yet so the writers sat in the back row of the
stands.
There was
a scene in Geeky’s script where the doorbell rings. Tempestt Bledsoe/Vanessa runs from the
kitchen to the front door yelling, “I’ll get it!” and opens the door. Malcolm enters. Suddenly Bill steps out of character and
yells, “Cut! Stop the music! Everybody hold your places.” All eyes are on Bill. I thought it was shocking. The director is the only person on set ever
allowed to call “Cut.” It was a breach of
show business protocol. I held my breath
wondering what would happen. Was this
the tip of the iceberg as far as Cosby’s controlling the show? Short answer: yes.
Bill had
a serious problem. “Is this little girl
going to open the door without knowing
who’s on the other side? I gulped. Cosby
was so right, but I knew fixing this minor detail meant yet another late
night rewrite. Why? Because, it’s not going to be simply Vanessa
asking, “Who is it?” and Malcolm answering, “It’s Theo.” That would be too easy and not funny. It’s got to be something cute like Vanessa
saying, “Who is it?” And Theo saying, “Come
on, open the door. You know who it
is. It’s me!” And then Vanessa might say something like, “Me
who?” And then Theo would say, “Theo,
your brother.” Then Vanessa would say,
sassily, “Oh really? You got any proof?” Etcetera. Add that exchange and the script will be a page
too long and we’ll have to cut some lines elsewhere in the script. With Geeky, THAT could take hours and HOURS.
“The WRITERS don’t have a problem with the
door?” Bill booms.
Geeky
mutters to me out of the side of his mouth, “Obviously we didn’t have a problem
when we wrote it. It’s a minor detail. It’s a dramatic
license, for Christ sakes.” Bill doesn’t
want to let it go. He shades his eyes,
squinting up into the dark bleachers. “Somebody,
turn up the lights so I can see who I’m talking to!” he yells. BLAM! The
houselights come on. I have a heart
attack right then and there. Geeky whispers
to me, “Stand your ground, this is bull. We’d still got the pilot to finish writing tonight. I need some sleep. You gotta help me out. ”
It gets
worse. Cosby’s voice bellows, “Will the
writers who are parents please stand up.”
I want to die. Geeky and I
stand. All heads turn to us. “Do you let your children open the door
without knowing who’s on the other side?
What about you, Legs?” I’m dying.
Cosby already hates me twice, for my
script and for Richard Pryor. Now I’m
about to dig myself another hole? “Legs,
do you let your child answer the door without asking?”
“Yes,” I peep, unconvincingly. There was no time to explain that our door had
a fan shaped window in the top, so we could see easily who was on the other
side. Of course my son knew not to just
open the door for anybody, but Geeky was depending on me to hold the line with
him against Cosby. Cosby is now glaring
at me like the bad mom and/or lying writer that I am. ”And it’s okay
with you?” he asks with great disgust.
All I could do was grin and shrug my shoulders sheepishly.
Next it
was Geeky’s turn. At last, Geeky will
rescue me. “How about my Executive Pro-Doocer? Do you let your children answer the door without
asking? ” booms Bill. Geeky says, “No sir, I don’t let them open the
door ever, even to go out. I pass them
through the window, but only to people we know really well, like their
grandparents.” That gets a chuckle from
everyone, including Cosby. That leaves
me standing in a steaming pile of bad parent poo. Thank you Geeky! “Back to the drawing board, kiddies!” Bill says pointing at the writers. We worked on BOTH scripts that night. At three AM we finally finished the pilot
script scenes, which were going to be filmed Friday night along with Geeky’s
episode.
The Cosby
schedule almost never improved. Since
there had been no pre-production time there was no backlog of scripts. All of the freelance scripts needed complete
re-writes. Our scripts were typewritten
which made the entire pre-computer process of assembling a daily script
amazingly, fantastically, time consuming!
We could never catch up. In our
spare time, we were tasked with reading from a pile of scripts to find writers
worthy of replacing us when we went back to LA after the ninth show. We often worked all day Sunday too, and only
got to quit at 4 PM because that was the deadline for Monday’s script to be
typed and duplicated.
Wednesday’s
breach of parenting ethics lead to the hiring of Dr. Alvin Poussant, Ph.D. Poussant
was a psychologist and a longtime crony of Bill’s. The good head doctor was going to review each
script to make sure that it passed psychological muster. To me the whole arrangement had the stink of
censorship and I hate all censorship. My
motto is: stay away from experts or they will SUCK the comedy out of your
script. In my experience there’s no
greater comedy-killer than psychologists.
Putting a shrink on the payroll meant we were going to do more than
entertain. It meant we were going to
TEACH. Reverend Cosby wants to sell his
code of ethics to as large an audience as possible. The sitcom is his forum.
Bill
wanted to show the TV audience THIS is the proper way to live. If you have these Huxtable morals and
standards, you will lead a good, purposeful life. Cosby was doling out life lessons, just like
Garry Marshall did on Happy Days and Tony Randall did on all his shows. The Cosby pilot was the perfect example: Cleo and Cliff are in the bedroom. The son tells the father he plans to drop out
of school. Bill sets Theo straight with
a funny money demo. If that didn’t get
the message across, Cliff says, “I brought you into the world and I’ll take you
out!” The father says essentially, “I
will kill you if you drop out of school and become a bum.” That was Bill’s message to youth and I
couldn’t agree more.
The TV
Guide article came out about the first Cosby cast reading. The writer described Korby and me as the “slack-jawed
writers” reacting with shock to Cosby’s trashing our script. I guess it was some sort of vindication.
After we
got home, Tom and Marcy invited us to the Cosby wrap party at the LA Museum of
Science and Industry, to a Cosby Emmy party at the David Geffen Theater, and to
a slew of Cosby related events. Months
later I visited the gorgeously remodeled NBC Studios in Brooklyn. Besides putting in new beautiful offices, they
had a professional kitchen with a chef cooking healthy lunches and dinners for
the writers. I finally got to meet one
of our replacement writers -- a guy I like to think I had helped discover from
a pile of scripts on Marcy’s desk. I had
read his off-Broadway play. With a name
like Matt Williams, I was sure Cosby would finally get his wish and have an
excellent black writer. He got an
excellent writer, albeit white. Best of
all Bill was more than gracious when he spotted his old friend “Legs.” He said he didn’t know I was leaving till I
was already gone. I guess that’s an
example of the deep separation between Stage and Writer’s Room. I was relieved Reverend Cosby still had a
little Jell-O left in him.
ADDENDUM:
“The Cosby Show” was a milestone for
women in sitcoms. We had a female
executive producer and female line producer, plus two women writers (although
technically, as partners, we were only counted as one person). I felt like women were finally making it in
sitcom. One day on stage I noticed our
producer, Caryn Mandabach, was missing. I
asked around and someone told me she had her baby yesterday. “Oh.” A
little while later I spotted Caryn walking around on stage and she was still
big as a house. “Oh Caryn, you’re here. Some idiot just told me you had your
baby.” And Caryn said, “I did, yesterday. He’s up in the stands with his nurse.” Caryn waved to a smiling toothless black lady
in a white uniform. The lady waved back
while holding a teeny, tiny one-day old baby.
ONE DAY!? ONE DAY?! And she’s back to work, like she skipped work
yesterday in order to get her roots touched up?
What was the world of working women coming to?
(The day
after I gave birth I was still in the hospital, walking bowlegged while straddling
an industrial strength sanitary pad the size of a canoe. My hair was in a point. I was exhausted, stressed and so overwhelmed it
lead to a case of post-partum depression so severe it lasted for eighteen
years! Did I rush back to work? I did not.
I took six months.)
My generation of working women
accepted the old Ginger Rodgers dictum that said to get ahead women had to do
what men did “backwards and in high heels.”
This was my 12th year in show biz. Caryn represented a new generation of Hollywood
working women. She couldn’t take a few
days off to have a baby? Now we’re
supposed to give birth in the field, tie the umbilical cord with our teeth and
go back to picking cotton? What the
hell! If Caryn set the new standard, I
couldn’t compete. I had neither the
stamina nor the ambition, but Caryn did.
Eventually it paid off to the tune of three hundred million dollars when
“The Cosby Show” was sold into syndication. No one can say she didn’t earn it.
***
