Hey Hey Hey!

from the Baltimore Sun

Comedian, actor and Jell-O pitchman Bill Cosby comes to Baltimore next month in a new role: political fundraiser.

Cosby will be the star attraction Jan. 11 at a $4,000-a-plate dinner at the Tremont Grand on North Charles Street to benefit Otis Rolley, a former city housing and planning official who is challenging Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake in the Democratic primary for mayor.

There also will be a $500-a-head reception and a $75 stand-up performance.

“He typically doesn’t get involved in this kind of stuff,” Rolley, who was Sheila Dixon's chief of staff during her first year as mayor, told me Wednesday.

But The Cos agreed to do it after talking with Rolley over the phone recently.

That phone conversation took place at the behest of Karen Miller, who was Rolley’s director of budget and human resources when he headed the city planning department, and now serves as his fundraiser. Miller had arranged for Cosby to come to town twice, for a Park Heights block party in 2008 and for Black History Month in 2009, when she worked for then-Mayor Dixon.

“I really would like you to talk to this person,” Miller recalled telling Cosby. “I think he’s a rock star.”

Cosby’s reply, according to Miller: “What do you need me for if he’s a rock star?”

“OK,” she conceded, “he’s not a rock star.”

But Rolley is, she said, someone who shares Cosby’s passion for “what’s happening in urban cities and what’s not happening.”

Cosby agreed to give Rolley 20 minutes. They wound up talking for 40.

During that time, Rolley said he talked about both his master’s degree in planning from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his poor childhood in Jersey City, New Jersey, where Rolley said he was physically and sexually abused.

“I do have a degree from MIT,” Rolley recalled telling Cosby. “I also have a PhD from the school of hard knocks.”

My call to Cosby’s publicist was not immediately returned, so all I have is Rolley’s account of the conversation. Rolley said it ended abruptly.

“He didn’t say goodbye,” Rolley said. “He just hung up. ‘Oh, gosh. Did I say the wrong thing?’”

Two hours later, Miller called to say Cosby wanted to endorse him, do a fundraiser and eventually go door-knocking with him.

The fundraiser will come at a critical time for Rolley, whose first campaign finance report is due Jan. 20.

“Word on the street is, ‘Otis is good. He would be great, but there’s no way he can raise money,’” Rolley said. "If I have a strong showing on the 20th, then that conversation will change.”