Someone had to hold Bill Cosby back to keep him from crawling over a balcony and joining fellow comedians on stage as the stars lined up to pay tribute to his life’s work. When the lights went out for the start of the 12th annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor, Cosby filled the dark silence Monday night. “Hellooo?” he called out at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. And once again, he had his audience laughing. Chris Rock and Jerry Seinfeld saluted their fellow funny man with the nation’s top comedy prize, along with two co-stars from “The Cosby Show,” Phylicia Rashad and Malcolm-Jamal Warner. They hailed Cosby’s work breaking down racial barriers and stereotypes and replayed his standup routines. Cosby quipped that usually when a man sees his life flash before his eyes, it’s for a bad reason. “But this is all right,” he said. First lady Michelle Obama and Jill Biden, Vice President Joe Biden’s wife, were among those in Washington watching clips from Cosby’s long career — from his classic standup routine of Noah’s chat with God about building an ark to dealing with the stresses of raising a family as a TV dad. Seinfeld and Rock shared the stage and said they followed Cosby’s comedy albums as children, which inspired their own careers. Then they got lost in banter about how they could never measure up, after seeing Cosby together more recently at New York’s Apollo Theater. Cosby, 72, has won other major awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002. Still, the Mark Twain Prize is special, he said, because Twain was the “quintessential American writer — because he held his language and his love for words in perfect American form.” Cosby apologized to a bust of Twain during his acceptance speech for bumping him and stealing some of his words. The tribute will air Nov. 4 nationwide on PBS. Cosby insisted the performances at the tribute be free of profanity and that the show reflect his emphasis on education. “The show is very, very important to me,” Cosby said in an interview. “It makes me aware that as a monologist and a writer and a performer, I’ve done some wonderful work.”
