Rashad Grateful for Her ‘Cosby’ Years

TV or not TV. . . .

CURTAIN CALL: “As we got closer and closer to the final taping,” says Phylicia Rashad, “my overwhelming feeling was one of gratitude for the total experience of the series.”

For eight years, Rashad has been attorney and mother Clair Huxtable on NBC’s “The Cosby Show,” which shot its last episode March 6 at its New York studio. It airs on April 30 in what could be one of television’s all-time tune-ins.

“The entire thing was unimaginable to me eight years ago,” says Rashad, who plays the wife of Bill Cosby in the series. “At the time I was cast in ‘The Cosby Show,’ I was in the soap opera ‘One Life to Live.’

“So when people keep asking me, ‘Are you sad now?’ I wonder what they’re talking about. This has been the best. If it gets any better than this, I really want to know.”

During the last week of “The Cosby Show,” says Rashad, “Bill was in such rare form. In the middle of a scene, he’ll just go somewhere in attitude instead of just responding to what’s in the script. And it’s funny. He did that all the time--he would take things a step further than they were written.

“He was always after the truth of a situation. He taught us the power of staying with the truth because that’s where the humor is.”

Of the series’ stupendous success, Rashad says the reason is that “Bill showed that people are more alike than they are different, and that they want to embrace these likenesses. The show wasn’t written for a black family. It was black because we’re black people. But anybody could have played those roles.”

As for her future, Rashad notes that she’s hardly a one-note actress. A singer, she has appeared in “The Wiz,” “Dreamgirls” and “Into the Woods”; performed in Las Vegas; and recorded children’s nursery rhymes. She has also done four TV movies in recent years.

“I’m very happy people identify me with Clair Huxtable,” she says, “but I don’t feel I have to break out of anything. I really want to work in film.”

Would she consider another series?

“Of course I would. But it would have to be very special, because after you’ve done the best, it would be remiss of me to settle for less.”

When the final taping of “The Cosby Show” was over and Clair Huxtable was behind her, Rashad “picked up my last few things from the dressing room” and headed straight home to Los Angeles, skipping a windup party, because she had promised to do a telethon here.

“The work was done,” she says.

THIRTYSOMETHING: “I think people just never wanted to let me grow up,” says Mariel Hemingway. “But I thought, ‘I’m 30 now and I have to do something as a grown-up.’ ”

The actress, granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway and veteran of such films as “Manhattan,” “Personal Best” and “Star ‘80,” is now slugging her way through the daily TV grind in ABC’s “Civil Wars,” which deals with two divorce lawyers and moves to a new Tuesday slot tonight.

It’s Hemingway’s first weekly series: “I love the pace because I love to work. My manager had told me, ‘You’ve got to read this pilot.’ I didn’t even know what a pilot was. She said, ‘Pilot--you know, television.’ ”

She’s done some TV before, including the miniseries “Amerika.” But “Civil Wars” is giving the ebullient performer a chance to show her stuff as an independent-minded attorney.

“I see her as very strong in the courtroom, strong with words, pulling her femininity off with power,” says Hemingway. “I want to make sure she’s seen as a woman with power, not as a man dressed up as a woman. We are not men. I don’t mean sexual stuff. I just think a woman deals from a different place.”

She plays a character named Sydney Guilford: “She looks and dresses perfect. But she has trouble dealing with her life. It’s a mess. That’s fun. And TV is like exercising every day--you can’t help but get better at it.”

CHANGE OF PACE: Michael J. Fox turns director for the March 25 episode of CBS’ “Brooklyn Bridge.”

LAST CHANCE: CBS’ on-again, off-again “The Trials of Rosie O’Neill” gets another shot Saturdays at 10 p.m. starting April 11. If the ratings don’t make a solid case with the network this time, it’s probably curtains.

AMERICAN ORIGINAL: We suddenly started receiving cable’s Monitor Channel the other day, and, to our delight, up popped “Mort Sahl Live!,” which airs at 5 and 10 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. His political jibes are perfect for an election year, and he also noted that courage in America is “going into a restaurant that hasn’t been reviewed yet.”

INSPIRED: “Saturday Night Live” (using a C-SPAN logo) had Jerry Brown, Paul Tsongas and Bill Clinton--no, no, not the real ones--addressing a Star Trek convention. Now that’s a perfect concept.

TOGETHER AGAIN: Tawny Little’s Academy Awards interviews for KABC Channel 7 were always cult classics, but her upcoming re-teaming with Jerry Dunphy on KCAL Channel 9 is a clever move that will raise the profile of the station’s prime-time news.

TOUCHY: On April 21, Robert Alton Harris is scheduled to die in the gas chamber at San Quentin. On April 3, Fox has a previously scheduled TV movie, “LIVE! From Death Row,” in which prison inmates take a news crew hostage and vow to broadcast an execution.

TREND: Very wise of the networks to give large advance orders--one and two seasons--for such hits as “Northern Exposure,” “Beverly Hills, 90210” and “Law & Order.” It will only improve quality, and that’s the way to retain viewers and make networks viable.

RAT RACE: Well, what do you expect from a TV academy that won’t let “The Simpsons” compete for best comedy series in the Emmy Awards? Now the academy has done it again--lumping guest stars with series regulars in the best-acting categories. OK--guest stars should get their due on the Emmy telecast, but not at the expense of performers who toil throughout a season.

TALLY: The latest poll by Viewers for Quality Television, a grass-roots organization, tabs NBC’s “I’ll Fly Away” as the finest show in prime time.

BEING THERE: “You kind of look your major buyers (advertisers) in the eye and tell them, ‘We won’t do what you want.’ “--Pat Weaver, former head of NBC-TV.

Say good night, Gracie. . . .