FROM HERE TO PATERNITY

By Richard Zoglin

Good news: fresh episodes of Bill Cosby's CBS sitcom will start taping this week. The show may be struggling in the ratings and a little short on yucks, but at least it will be a relief from the seamy, real-life family drama that America's favorite father has been starring in all summer.

That drama appeared to end two weeks ago, when a jury convicted Autumn Jackson, 22, the woman who claims to be Cosby's illegitimate daughter, of extortion for trying to coax $40 million out of Dear Old (Maybe) Dad in exchange for her not taking her story to the tabloids. But the soap opera keeps taking new twists. The issue of whether Cosby really is Autumn's father--he denies it, while admitting he had sex with her mother--was ruled irrelevant at the trial. But last week on CNBC's Rivera Live, Cosby attorney Jack Schmitt dropped a bombshell: he said Cosby was having blood drawn--"as we speak"--for a DNA comparison, to try to settle the paternity matter once and for all. Schmitt challenged Autumn Jackson to do the same.

Blindsided on live TV, her attorney Robert M. Baum at first hedged, but later said Jackson would not submit to the test, at least not until after her sentencing in October. "The test will not change the fact that Autumn was raised to believe he was the father," Baum said. Jackson supporters attacked the Cosby TV ploy as grandstanding, pointing out that he had refused their earlier requests to take a paternity test. Some skeptics were suspicious because Cosby's blood sampling was done by surprise and in secret rather than in a controlled setting along with Autumn, in keeping with the usual practice in paternity cases. And the rest of the country wondered whether the whole sad affair could get any messier.

It could. Jerald Jackson, who is named on the birth certificate as Autumn's father, claims he is her real dad. Jackson, a convicted felon who is now a truck driver and born-again Christian, says he and Autumn's mother, Shawn Upshaw, had a relationship while she was a prostitute. (Upshaw "categorically denies" that she ever worked as a prostitute, says her attorney, Wanda Akin.) "We really cared about one another, and Autumn was supposed to symbolize that," Jackson told TIME. "I don't just believe I am the father. I know I am the father."

Then, from behind Door No. 3, yet another candidate emerged for the title of Autumn's father. He is a former busboy named Jesus Vasquez, whom Upshaw apparently married in 1973, a year before Autumn's birth--a marriage arranged, according to former friends, to help the Mexican immigrant gain U.S. citizenship. Joan Green, who was a waitress at the Los Angeles restaurant where Upshaw's mother and Vasquez worked, says everyone there assumed Vasquez was the girl's father. "The shape of her eyes and her eyebrows are Jesus," Green says. "And if you look at her baby pictures, Autumn had pin-straight hair." Upshaw, through her attorney, asserts that she never lived or had sexual relations with Vasquez, who has not surfaced, though a marriage license confirming their nuptials has.

Cosby's paternity-test gambit has forced the disputants to jockey quickly for the high moral ground. Baum called on Cosby to ask Judge Barbara Jones for leniency in sentencing Autumn, who faces up to 12 years in prison. "I know Dr. Huxtable would come forward and ask for leniency; Mr. Cosby should come forward," Baum said on TV. Cosby's publicist, David Brokaw, called the invoking of Cosby's former TV alter ego "a cheap shot" and complained that Jackson has yet to apologize or show any remorse for her actions.

The extended scrapping highlights a mystery that has dogged the whole sorry affair: Why has Cosby pursued the case so vigorously--even after his victory in court--thus ensuring weeks of embarrassing and possibly damaging publicity? It appears to be the rare case of a show-biz celebrity more concerned with principles--at least, his view of them--than with protecting his public image. Obviously Cosby was so angered by Jackson's demands for money (the last one came on the day of his son's murder) that he made the case a moral crusade. "Cosby is a very headstrong guy, a man of principle who dictates his own decisions," says Dan Klores, a New York p.r. consultant who has worked with Cosby. "He clearly was out to teach these people a lesson."

The question is whether in teaching them a lesson, Cosby will wind up looking heartless and vindictive. Even many who dispute Autumn's claims and applaud the verdict are disturbed at the thought that she could serve prison time. "She's not a criminal," says Jerald Jackson. "She was like a spoiled brat who threw a $40 million tantrum. You don't lock up a spoiled brat." That depends on which father knows best.

--Reported by Charlotte Faltermayer/New York

With reporting by CHARLOTTE FALTERMAYER/NEW YORK