'Taxi' actor's a rollerblader; Larry Platt book with Stuart Scott is out

PHILLY POLICE'S own Lt. Jonathan Josey - yes, that Jonathan Josey - is making headlines again. This time for rubbing elbows with actress Vivica A. Fox, who was in town over the weekend to tout her new line of women's hair products.

Josey, a former Daily News Sexy Single, has certainly made a new name for himself, leaving behind the shadow of his acquittal on assault charges from 2012. In July 2014 he was on duty when he saved three people in a house fire in South Philly. His new moniker is "Jonathan Damon," his screen name for his play "What If Heaven was Black?"

Lt. Josey captured a moment with the "Soul Food" actress at Suite 822 Ultra Lounge (822 N. Broad St.) after a First Friday networking event at the club. You might have guessed the pair came as each others' guests by the way their outfits complemented each other. The fashion pairing was an uncanny coincidence, as shown in the photo.

"I was mad I didn't ask her out to dinner the next night!" Josey quipped, joking that he didn't want to face the wrath of Fox's ex, 50 Cent, "beating down my door."

The disgraced-then-exonerated cop-turned-playwright is also spearheading a GoFundMe fundraiser to help get the cast and crew of "What If Heaven was Black?" to Washington, D.C., for the 2015 D.C. Black Theatre Festival, June 19-28.

"This is to get me, my cast, my crew and my set to D.C. to put on this wonderful performance," he said.

"We have about 95 percent to get there."

Actor and former teacher Tony Danza will be back in Philly to host the fourth annual Northeast Philadelphia High School talent show March 23. That's the same high school at which he decided - at age 60 - to teach, and which inspired him to write a best-selling book, I'd Like to Apologize to Every Teacher I Ever Had: My Year as a Rookie Teacher at Northeast High.

Danza says proceeds of the teachers-vs.-students annual fundraiser go to support programs at the high school that are no longer supported by the Philadelphia School District.

"There's not a lot of fundraising for this type of thing. It may be a model for the future," he told me.

"One of the things you really find when you're a teacher is that in order to get the kids to work, you have to show them that you care about them. You have to demonstratively let them know that you care."

The Emmy- and Golden Globe-nominated actor offered a tidbit I did not know about him: He enjoys inline skating on Kelly Drive.

Tickets for the talent show are available through the Northeast High School Alumni Association. Organizers can be reached at nehsalumni1@yahoo.com or 215-728-5018.

Every Day I Fight, a book about the late Stuart Scott of ESPN that co-author and former People Paper editor Larry Platt calls a "labor of love," hits bookshelves today.

Shortly before he lost his battle with cancer in January, Scott finished up the memoir, which chronicles his legendary life from fledgling sportscaster in North Carolina to becoming the "Jackie Robinson of sports broadcasting," as described by Platt yesterday.

Scott "kept saying he wanted a real, raw, honest account - not only as a media memoir but as a way to live your life and face the end," said Platt.

Platt said his agent hooked him up with Scott more than a year ago in Connecticut, where Scott was being treated for the disease. He said that right away, he realized this was not a typical book project.

"My hope is that this is a legacy for him," Platt said.

"When you go through this with someone so intimately over the last year, you can't help but look inward and ask yourself if you'd conduct yourself in such a manner. . . . Hopefully readers will go through that same process."

Penguin Random House, which is printing 100,000 copies of Every Day I Fight, is contributing a percentage of sales to the Jimmy V Foundation for Cancer Research, a charity that was near and dear to Scott's heart.