Bill Cosby Returning to Work on Show After Son’s Death

NEW YORK — When Bill Cosby returns to work here today, he will be seeing the cast and crew of his CBS comedy for the first time since the shooting death of his son, Ennis, 11 days ago in California.

“I don’t know what he will say, but I’m sure that everyone on the show will do their best to make Mr. Cosby feel comfortable,” said David Brokaw, the entertainer’s spokesman. “I imagine they’ll talk briefly and then get down to work. That’s what he wants to do.”

Cosby, his longtime TV wife Phylicia Rashad and the other actors on “Cosby” will videotape the episode of the show that they were rehearsing the morning that Los Angeles Police Department spokesman Cmdr. Tim McBride called Cosby on the set to notify him that his 27-year-old son had been killed.

The episode, which is expected to air in February, will be taped without a studio audience, on a set that will be closed to the press and the public.

“The set is normally closed, but we’re emphatically closing it this week to try to give people privacy and prevent distractions as much as possible,” Brokaw said.

“We don’t want media there, asking him a lot of questions,” he said. Cosby has been in seclusion with his family since the night of Jan. 16.

Despite his desire for privacy, Cosby wants to get back to taping his TV show before the kind of fans who have helped make him America’s most popular TV father.

“Work for him is about entertaining people, performing for an audience,” Brokaw said.

So, after rehearsals on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, a new episode of “Cosby” will be videotaped Friday with, as usual, a studio audience. The audience will be composed of people who already had requested and received tickets for a “Cosby” taping.

In the past, Cosby has greeted the audience and played to them during the show. “We don’t know how the audience will respond or what he might say,” Brokaw said about Friday’s taping. “We’re hoping the show can be fairly normal.”

“Throughout this entire period, he’s been remarkably composed and focused,” Brokaw said of Cosby. “He’s even been able to make me laugh on occasion.”

Besides wanting to resume a normal schedule, Cosby told Brokaw that he is able to do so now because “there’s no guilt” attached to his son’s death. “He said his son lived a dignified and rewarding life,” Brokaw said. “He said he was proud of his son and felt that, as a father, he had done his best for his son.”

Cosby and the producers of his first-year sitcom have not decided whether they will make any kind of fictional reference in the show to what has happened to the comedian in real life. But he does plan to bring a quiet remembrance of his son to the set. In coming weeks, if viewers look carefully, they’ll see it on a wall of Hilton and Ruth Lucas’ home: a painting of Ennis Cosby.