But everybody has their own Cosby story. Here’s mine: I started listening to his comedy records while in elementary school; they were the kind of things kids often committed to memory and recited on their own. I reviewed one of his standup concerts with Sammy Davis Jr. and found it uproarious. I covered him a little bit, as he lived in Western Massachusetts, not far from Hartford, where I covered entertainment.
I had conducted a long search for his 45, a 1967 variation of Stevie Wonder’s “Uptight” titled “Little Ole Man” that I finally found just about the time accusations began to catch on in the public.
It was at a self-serving show of his own African art collection at the Smithsonian’s Museum of African Art that led to one of the interviews where he refused to answer questions about the accusations (more than that he wanted guaranteed that his refusal to answer wouldn’t be included in subsequent reports).
I saw his wife Camille at a fundraiser for that museum I was covering for Smithsonian Magazine.com.
But I also helped lead a movement after his conviction to rescind the lifetime achievement award given to Cosby by the TV Critics Association given to him about the time that I joined the organization in 2002. While it was first met with resistance during the trail, the motion passed overwhelmingly following conviction.
Vacating the conviction in June provides an unexpected twist for Bell at the end; we’re still left as an audience what to make of this man the nation had trusted so completely who had failed it so badly. It makes it an important documentary to rekindle the whole conversation.