Bill Cosby: The Fall of an American Icon – a horrifying portrait
This thorough film explores how ‘America’s dad’ stood trial for sexual assault. Plus: Lady Lucan candidly reveals the sad truth about her marriage
Lynn Norment, former editor of Ebony magazine, in Bill Cosby: Fall of an American Icon (BBC 2) said Bill Cosby was “a great role model, a great father, a great husband, a great great entertainer.”
Television critic James Poniewozik said that he was “technically brilliant as a comedian.” And that The Cosby Show “is recognized as a social good, in which people of all backgrounds, backgrounds and colors can identify with this family.”
It makes African Americans proud, it makes white Americans feel good. “Everybody loved him, he was America’s father,” said Joseph C Phillips, who worked with Cosby on the show.
Lili Bernard also worked on The Cosby Show (importantly, just once). “Challenging the perception of black people is false, because the media has perpetuated negative images of black people,” she said.
So far, that’s it. It could be a biography, This Is Your Life, Bill. But then Bernard also testified: “He drugged me, raped me and then threatened to cause serious consequences to my life.”
And Victoria Valentino describes, in sickening detail, how Cosby – who had just begun his trial for sexually assaulting another woman, Andrea Constand, – drugged and raped her in 1969 .
So why of all the first part, America’s great role model and father, is a documentary about his rise to trial? Because it’s an essential part of the story. And it wasn’t just the breathtaking heights he fell (Jennifer Lee Pryor says “Bill is the Everest of celebrity,” and she should know, having been married to Richard “K2” Pryor multiple times).
This thorough film explores the story’s roots in the civil rights movement. Cosby was a great force for social good, he and his sitcom broke down racial barriers and appealed to everyone. This isn’t just about the great Hollywood get-rich machine that keeps everyone quiet. It’s about how no one wants to believe anything is wrong. “Can you believe that my trust in him as my father is so great,” Bernard said. “I trusted him so much, I couldn’t make the connection that he could do that.”
If the victim doesn’t believe it, even if it’s happening to her, then perhaps it’s not surprising that America doesn’t want to know either. You wouldn’t do that, about your dad, would you? Until you can’t ignore it anymore.
The most astonishing TV program you saw of the night was Lord Lucan: My Husband, The Truth (ITV), in which Lady Lucan broke her silence, for the first time in 30 years. She made up for lost time, telling all very frankly, about marrying Lord Lucan, being accused of mental instability, fighting for custody of her children. It would be funny (because it’s about a strange world of speedboats, pet tigers and Monte Carlo while the nanny takes the kids to Westgate-on-Sea) if it weren’t so sad.
“He said: ‘Will you marry me?’ and I didn’t say anything, and he said, ‘Will you marry me?’ and I said: ‘Yes, I will marry you’ … It was sparsely attended by both parties because neither of us was very famous … We obviously had a not-so-popular Christmas fun… Maybe I could have been better [as a mother] I was in bed too often… All my relationships were cold… I think [my butt] is a great ass, my husband obviously thinks so too… He said that’s the purpose of being married, you don’t have to talk to that person… He took me for a drive, and he took me to the Monastery… I had all these male GPs and they believed everything he said, even thought I was mentally ill… He said I would get rid of these crazy ideas off your head, please let me bend down and put my hands on the chair and he will hit me 10 times with his stick… And then he will be very happy, and look regretfully at the damage he has caused out… Well, he must have felt pleasure because he then had intercourse.”
It’s a depiction of a terrible, toxic, and abusive relationship. “He had intercourse afterward” is especially cold. Not “we”, but “he”, after hitting her.
There’s nothing funny about murder. “I screamed: ‘Please don’t kill me, John,’” she recalled. Of course, he beat Sandra Rivett, the nanny, to death before disappearing.
She thought he was dead, that he had jumped off the Channel ferry, “obscuring the propeller so his remains could not be found.”