by Stacey Dash
The collard greens are what did it. Finally, after years of neglect and contempt, seeing my mom chasing me with a bag of frozen collard greens pushed me over the edge. I’d had enough.
I ran upstairs, slammed the door to my bedroom, and went to the window. I placed my fingers on the window and yanked. Years of accumulated paint caused it to stick, but eventually it pulled free. The cold air hit my face and I gasped. I wasn’t prepared for the cold, though the ground was covered in snow. Using my left hand to brace myself, I crawled out onto the windowsill and looked down. My stomach leapt into my throat. I was on the second floor. Nine feet down? Twelve? I was never good at estimating distances. Not that it mattered. I had no option except to jump. I could no longer stomach life within the walls of that house. That’s all there was to it. If jumping cost me what was left of my life, then at least my mom would be satisfied that I “did it right” this time. My bare feet pressed into the wood of the windowsill, and I tried to find a soft spot to land, but couldn’t see the ground at this hour.
Did I have to do this? Chill bumps appeared on my arms and seemed to be warning me. This is dangerous. This isn’t right. But there was nothing “right” about this situation. My own mother had threatened me with a knife. How dangerous is leaping from the second floor compared to living with a drug addict who apparently wants me dead?
I said a prayer and looked down. In the dark, it all looked the same. Should I keep my legs up? I wondered. What is the best way to fall? I’d never done this before. Instead of leaping, I lowered myself down and held onto the ledge with my fingertips. Then I dropped into the darkness, and—in spite of myself—a little scream escaped from my lips. The snow rushed by my face, stinging. Before I knew I’d left the ledge, I hit the ground with an excruciating thud.
I checked my arms. They worked. My legs. My left one hurt, but it was still functional. I’d done it!
“Are you okay?” Darien’s face appeared above in my window.
“Throw me some shoes and a coat!” I said as I shook off the jolt of the fall.
“What are you doing?”
“Please!” I said. “Just help me. I don’t have time to explain, but if you ever do anything for me, do it now.”
Dutifully, he left the window and appeared back in a moment. My feet were wet and turning to ice fast.
“Are you gonna be okay?”
“Just toss them!”
He held the items out the window, and they fell right down to me.
“Thank you, Darien,” I said, looking up at my brother and seeing flashes of our lives together: sitting in front of the television for hours, laughing at Fred and Wilma; playing stickball in the street; spraying each other with water instead of doing the dishes. When he was little I had tried to shield him from a mother who wouldn’t feed us, and I hated leaving him there, but Mom had a different relationship with him. She was less combative, more loving, with Darien. He’d be okay with her in a way that I couldn’t.
I took one last look at my brother in the window of my room, and ran off into the woods.
I would never return.
I ran through the woods and made my way to the train station. I was crying hysterically, that angry kind of crying that dared anyone to cross me. That driving anger allowed me to run through the woods at that hour without worrying about the danger. When I arrived at the Port Authority—which was filled with hookers, homeless people, and the smell of urine—nobody was about to approach me. Not after what I’d just been through.
I got a train into the city, where I crashed at my godfather’s place for a while. His house was full of any sort of drug you’d ever want. He kept a bottle of cocaine with a bullet-shaped nozzle that sat on the coffee table. Anytime I wanted, I could just walk through the living room and take a hit. Drugs were available all the time, and I had no reason to refrain. But after a while, I knew I was wearing out my welcome, so I got my own place. Even though I was only seventeen, I was now officially on my own. I got an apartment on the Upper West Side, got a job as a receptionist at a hair salon in Chelsea, and decided to make a way for myself in this world.
I didn’t need anyone’s help.
Mom didn’t want me to act, so that’s naturally what I decided to do. The first job I got was for a hair perm commercial for Jheri Curl. To do the commercial, they actually put a perm in my hair. While I appreciated the truth in advertising, my hair was already curly enough.
“You’re really good,” the producer of the commercial said to me. “Do you have a theatrical agent?”
“No,” I said, trying not to look as pleased as I felt.
“You should go see mine,” she said, handing me her agent’s business card.
I took the card and slipped it into my purse, vowing to call as soon as I got home.
That commercial made my hair unmanageable, but every time I looked into the mirror and saw that head of hair, I knew: I was a professional actress.
Suddenly, I had a new commercial and a lead on an agent—who signed me right up.
“In fact, I think I might have a role for you,” my agent said after just a few weeks.
“Well, I hope the role calls for curly hair,” I said, still recovering from the effects of the perm commercial. “Are you going to make me ask what it is?”
“The Cosby Show,” he said, emphasizing each word like he was laying down a gift at my feet. In a way, he was.
“Seriously?” Every Thursday night I sat in front of my television set at 8:00 to see NBC’s lineup of comedies—The Cosby Show, Family Ties, Cheers, and Night Court—to distract me from my regular life. I’d never seen a television family like the one portrayed on The Cosby Show. Yeah, there were Good Times and The Jeffersons, but those shows were all about race: J.J. was always “scratchin’ and survivin’” in the inner city of Chicago, talking about “black Jesus,” and poverty; George and Mr. Willis were always arguing and calling each other racial slurs.
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 charact
ers 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.”