Even if Bill Cosby didn`t have a hit TV show, he`d still have a fan club. Made up of other comedians, no less.
Take, for instance, comics Jerry Seinfeld and Larry Miller, who showed up at Cosby`s dressing-room door in Las Vegas nearly a decade ago looking for advice from the veteran standup. Cosby didn`t know the fledgling comics from a couple of Adams, but he took them to dinner nonetheless. The NBC star did the same for Paul Reiser a year later.
So, with that kind of altruistic history, it really comes as no surprise when Angela Scott beams that Bill Cosby gave her the time of day. Granted, they`ve known each other for a few years now, given that Scott works as the warmup act for ”The Cosby Show” tapings at the Kaufman Astoria Studios in New York, but bosses don`t have to be that nice.
”He watched my tape, and he gave me some wonderful advice,” she says.
”First off, he took the time to watch it with me and then spent about an hour and a half with me after that. I took notes, of course-that I cherish.
”One of the best pieces of advice he gave me was not to sell myself short. And that`s true, sometimes I do sell myself short. I get scared, but I`m getting better at not getting scared.
”He knows so much about comedy,” Scott concludes. ”And I`m going to listen to what he says and do what he tells me to.”
Not that what she has been doing has been at all wrong. In fact, Scott, who has a wonderful rapport with audiences, works regularly at local clubs and in a weekly children`s revue. Too, there are the occasional road gigs and college shows.
Still, she says, it`s time to broaden the base of her material. Among other things, Cosby has advised Scott, who is divorced and has two college-age children, to address topics like motherhood in more depth.
”There`s a lot of funny stuff about family you can talk to people about onstage. I mean, look at him,” she says with a little laugh. ”And there are elements of being a radical that I have to explore, that I have to flesh out. I`m beginning to be really honest about that stuff onstage.”
When Angela Scott says radical, she does mean radical. Take, for instance, this bit from her act:
”I met my husband in college,” she tells an audience. ”We were politically active. A little militant.”
Pause.
”We were Black Panthers.
”They said have babies for the revolution,” she continues. ”I`m still miffed with the Panther party because nobody told me they weren`t going to baby-sit.”
”I watch people die when I say that,” Scott says offstage. ”They just don`t believe me.”
They should. Scott left school and signed on with the Black Panther Party in Boston in 1968 and stayed with it for 2 1/2 years-toting her then-infant son, Peter, in one arm and carrying a 30.06 rifle over the other. It was a time of social and political upheaval, and Scott, who was born in New York and reared in the decidedly middle-class town of Concord, Mass., was definitely in the middle of the fray.
Today she laughs at some of the absurdities created by her life at the time-for example, ”They asked me to leave school because I wanted to bring my rifle into class with me. Imagine!”-and hopes others will as well.
Cosby ”encourages me to do that material here,” she says backstage at
”The Cosby Show.” ”I always figured when I do warmup for this show, I`m the guest.
”If they come to a club, that`s different, they`re my audience. But here, they`re his. But he says go for it.”
