| Chat | Links |
Robert Brown
In His Own Words Interview
Part One
August 14, 1998On line fans submitted these questions to Robert. I sent them along in written form and Robert answered verbally via tape recording. Transcribed by Patti, with LaDene's help! An extra special THANK YOU to LaDene for the edits, correct spellings of the German names and for sharing your invaluable theatre expertise with me! And of course a big thank you to Robert for his willingness to do this interview!
"This is Robert Brown. I'm speaking from my home, sitting in front of a television set, which is off, and that's good. My back is to a nice air conditioner. I guess it's 95 degrees or 100 again in my area.
I'm answering the questions put to me by the website. I am very, very delighted with the questions and the interest. I hope you won't mind some of the answers, I'm just going to wing it. I looked at a couple and I thought I would speak to the questions as if they were asked rather than if I had planned a response."
I'd like to know about your family, kids, grand kids, etc.
Well, I've always thought it was a wise policy just to speak of family and all that, with just your family and your close friends because I don't know that it's a fair thing to do or even wise in our crazy world today, to bring the family into it. I made a mess of this life by being and actor and I didn't ask anybody if I might. I just went ahead and did it. So, it might be inappropriate for me to talk about them.
They're all wonderful and doing well, growing up and I am very fortunate. I have a daughter and two grandchildren, boys. Then I have a stepdaughter and a stepson who I feel is as close to me as my own child. They're living a good life as well.
Love the Iams voiceovers. Are you doing any other voiceovers?
You know, I love the Iams voiceovers as well in that, not so much what I do on them, but the concept that is quite a real one. That is, they've discovered through scientific research, (and there is more research being done), and have come up with the same information. Your heart and heartbeat and your whole physical structure is improved with petting your pet or being close to your animal that loves you and you responding to your animal equally as well. That prolongs life, and not just the years, but the quality of life. And that's the concept of the voiceovers and I'm very happy to be doing them.
Yes, I've done a lot of voiceovers for Chrysler New Yorker and a long time, years and years ago, I did Porsche and I've done wines and oh, airlines. So many that I really don't remember. In fact when I go to work, I'm at a recording studio and I, on occasion, run into someone on the street, or when I come out of the booth, actors waiting to go in to another recording session.
They say "Oh what are you doing here, what account do you have?" I've just finished going over the lines or saying the name of the product over and over again and I can't for the life of me remember! This is often.
I do the job, it's very different from acting because you leave your ego at the door. You wear your earphones and the client is usually not there. With the new apparatus they don't have to sit in the same room with you. They can be in New York or Timbuktu. You have your earphones on and you're speaking over this fiber optic television line and it is being recorded digitally. So you just don't see anybody, but you hear lots and lots of how to read the line and how to do this and that. That's your job. To do it as well as they need you to do it.
Where as an actor can't be told over and over how to say the lines. That's not how it goes. Ego of an actor is a different kind and you use that ego to fill the bones of a character. Where as in voiceovers you're there to get the point across the way in which it's been conceived. And that's why they pay ya.
I very much enjoy doing them in that I can gain weight if I choose, grow gray hair if I choose, wear glasses if I choose. And they say thank you at the end of the session. You don't find that almost ever in the theatre or television. There you are, and often the super-duper famous one's are not given the respect that maybe they hope to get.
What was your very first job? (Showbiz and non-showbiz)
Well, my very first job… I had small jobs as a boy, of course, delivering things at the drug store, a delivery boy. After school from time to time somebody would hire me to do jobs.
My very first job was when I lived in New York in a totally Jewish neighborhood. All Jewish people in the building except for my mother, father, my brother and myself, and the janitor who I didn't much care for. I think they were Pro-Nazi, German people. We just suspected that, but maybe my folks knew for sure. But we kept our distance.
I was asked one Friday right before sundown; I might have been 7, 8 or 9, maybe. I was asked if I didn't mind if I would please help them, this old couple that lived across the hallway, Mr. and Mrs. Goldberg. If I wouldn't mind turning the gas on and a light or so, that sort of thing. Because it was against the rules of their religion, they were Orthodox Jewish people. Their children had been living with them, but now they had moved away and I guess this was a new thing for them. They had to cook, but they didn't want to break the Sabbath, which is sundown Friday night to sundown Saturday night.
I did the light and Mrs. Goldberg gave me a nickel and I came home very proud of my earnings.
My mother said "Oh Robbie…" (I was called Robbie as a boy.)
"You say you earned a nickel, what did you do?"
"Oh mama." She was called mama. My mother was Scottish and my father English and that's how, I guess, they were described in England and Scotland and that's how I learned the word. My brother called my mother mama as well.
I said, "Mama…." And I told her what happened.
She said, "Oh, come on." I followed her back to Mrs. Goldberg's and she pressed the bell, introduced herself and they knew each other from just up and down the stairway.
"Hello, how are you, we live across the hall." My mother says.
Mrs. Goldberg says "Oh yes, I know that, you're boy Robbie was very helpful."
My mother said "Robbie, do you have that nickel?"
I said, "Yes."
She said "Give it back to Mrs. Goldberg." Which I did, dutifully.
Mrs. Goldberg said "Oh no, he did what he was asked to do."
My mother said "No, no. We're neighbors and neighbors can not be paid for helping neighbors. And I'm sure Robbie, if he's free, he'll be happy too do whatever he can to help. As will I. If you wanted me to come over to help, I'd be very pleased."
Mrs. Goldberg was delighted, of course with the warmth of my mother's sentiment.
She said "Oh Robbie, I must do something for you, would you liked some bananas and cream? We're just having some." My mother nodded yes and she went back to our apartment, smiling.
I went into Mrs. Goldberg's kitchen with her and there she fixed us a bowl of bananas and SOUR cream. Now, I'd never even heard of sour cream. I didn't know what it was! We, in the English, Scottish, Anglo-Saxon home, we'd always had sweet cream. Sour cream was unheard of at that time, by me. I had to eat it. It was as if I was eating a bowl of poison because my mouth was waiting for the taste of the sweet English cream. Over the years I've gotten to like sour cream, but not with bananas.
That was my very first job.
My first real job, when I had to join to get my social security number, was as an usher in a theater. You had to be 16. I was a pretty big young fella and I said I was 16 and lied. I used my brother's birth date and year, he was just a few years older than I. After a lifetime I'd forgot that. When I reached the age to let the government know, at 62 I think it was, I called then and said I am going to get some of the benefits of living. They wanted my social security number and birth date. Of course I put my birth date down and I got a letter back saying
"No, that's not correct, it must be another Robert Brown."
It took me awhile to remember that all those years ago, I had falsified my documents. I remembered though that was my brother's birth date. I don't know how, that was a long, long time ago. So, every thing is ok now.
I had my first job in the theatre; I was a stage actor. My first real job, I did little Off-Broadway and that sort of stuff. My first paying job was in summer theatre. It was a professional company and I was very lucky in that I earned my actor's equity card. It was a professional company, so I got paid.
I was still in dramatic school. That year, after the summer and the fall, at the school I was at, was the very famous Lee Strasberg (this is before the Actor's Studio.) He was teaching the history of the theatre and a directing class and I was part of it.
One day after one of the sessions, he asked, "Is anybody here a professional, a member of the actor's equity?"
I was the only one in the group even though Rod Steiger and Walter Mattahu were there, and some others. I was the first of that gang that had worked as a professional and gotten my equity card. I said I was a member and I was brought to a New York theater where he was directing a play by Jan Dehartog called "Skipper Next to God." John Garfield, the film star was playing the lead in it and I was hired to be in that play. It was a long time ago, in 1947. My first job.
Do you have any hidden talents we don't know about?
That's a remarkable question! The answers lie in the question itself, if I knew about any hidden talents, I would tell you. But, if I don't know about them, they're still hidden to me. So they're hidden from the person who asked that unusual question.
I don't know that I have any hidden anything. I am pretty much exposed to myself and others. I am a pretty easy character to figure. Just a man who is luckily able to tell my hearts truth as it's asked. I don't think my behavior is cryptic.
What's the best way to make you laugh?
I imagine it's an easy thing because there is humor everywhere. I see it in everything. The best way? I imagine, tell a good joke that doesn't embarrass anyone. I sometimes don't laugh at a the same joke depending on how I am feeling that day, what's on my mind. Unless you go to the theater that day, to a comedy and you know it's a comedy and you're prepared to laugh. You go to a theater and it's not a comedy and you're not prepared to laugh and you're surprised by a line that strikes you as funny and you have to hold back the laugh because it is not approbate. I've often done that. Many actors don't know that they're trying to say something seriously and if the play hasn't been rehearsed or hasn't been opened long, it can sound a lot different that night.
I remember I was in a play with Helen Hayes. My character had a love scene and on opening night, or maybe it was the second night. I had a line (I was the young romantic lead) and I was talking to the girl who was the ingénue. Talking to her, making love to her in a way. The lines were something like describing what it was like back where I grew up and a particular night where I was trying to make love to her, using words.
I was suppose to say, "Ah, the sky was all starry."
And it turned out that I said, "The sky was all scar-ie!"
I paused; I must have looked rather surprised that it had popped out that way. I wasn't experienced to know how to cover things, and of course I got a laugh. It wasn't a place that a laugh was needed. It took me a long time to recover from that.
The best way to make me laugh, I guess, is surprise, and I guess good intentions. I don't like to laugh at anybody's pain, even though it might be funny to see it at the time.
What's the worst trouble you got into as a child?
I can't think of anything, really. I'm sure I was in trouble all the time. I was just a boy growing up with loving parents and a brother.
Oh, I remember a story; it's not trouble. We went to school, my brother and I, a grammar school in New York. Right next door to the school was our building. That's why my father found it and moved into it, so we didn't have to cross any streets. After school, some days, my brother and I would races each other home if we'd had a wonderful desert the night before and have that with a glass of milk. Well, the night before with dinner we had apple pie for desert. Both of us loved apple pie. My brother was taller and older than I, but I was faster and physically more adept moving about. And I almost made it, but he went up the stairs two at a time. My legs were not long enough to do that even though I ran faster then he. He passed me on the stairs and got to the kitchen before I did. There was only two pieces left of the pie, a big piece and a little piece. There he was eating the big piece.
I cried, "You got the big piece."
And he asked, "If you had gotten here first, which piece would you have taken?"
I said "If I had got here first I would've taken the small piece!"
He said, "Well, that's the one you got, so what are you crying about?"
I was a little boy, and I guess that trouble I was in was with myself and I learned a lot from it. That's why I'm telling it to you after all these years.
I just can't think of trouble as a child. I can only remember the sweetness of those years. They weren't troubling until I became twelve or thirteen and I met some girls. My passion to know about a female was so intense that I would bump into walls! I was just so overwhelmed at thirteen and with puberty there. Boy! I was really overwhelmed! The aroma of a female and the look of her….maybe boys today don't grow up the way I did. But, gee whiz, I guess I was romantic, or passionate, or advanced, or maybe nuts, I'm not sure.
They're making a movie of your life. Who should play you?
Well, should is the funny word. I guess it's the actor who is lucky enough to get the job. Not the job to play me, but just the job. You never know why you get the job and you never really know why you don't get the job. If they're making a movie of my life, I really can't imagine, because often actors are hired to play people that are nothing like them. But a quality they have that they can perceive or they feel the presence of the person there, of the character they're playing. They bring to it an original life of their own that might be similar to that of the person that they're playing or representing. I wouldn't know how to think about that.
Who should play me? Somebody who loves life and somebody who's been lucky. Somebody who needs a job. By need, I mean somebody who really needs the job, who HAS to act, that's the person to have the job.
What was your most memorable meeting? (with a famous person or otherwise)
I am so lucky, I've been lucky most my life.
My father ran large households; he was an English butler. When he came to America he was Teddy Roosevelt's butler. This was after Mr. Roosevelt was president. It was at Oyster Bay, New York, his home there. Over the years there was many, many people my father worked for in mansions. We'd go to Bar Harbor, Maine every year which was where the rich and famous spent their 3 or 4 months a year.
Then on my own, being in the theatre and the kind of roles I play, I was lucky I started in big romantic, classical parts. Playing with some of the great people of the time in the theatre.
I was with Dame Judith Anderson in a play called "Come Of Age" that was directed by Guthrie Mc Clintok. His wife was the great Kathryn Cornell who was then the first lady of the theatre. I played Thomas Chaterton, the eighteenth century English poet whose spirit wouldn't die. He wanted to live, and he made a deal with death in the first scene, first act. He couldn't be taken in death until he had lived and suffered in pleasure and pain. He'd only known pain and hadn't known pleasure. So he comes back to life in various stages. Now it is in the twentieth century and he is having an affair with this older woman. It was a very intoxicating play because it was done in rhymth and with an orchestra behind us. It was quite amazing.
One night after the performance, Judith said to me, "Robert, we're not going up to our dressing room now. Guthrie asked me to keep us on the stage. We have too wait for someone. "
We waited and there came Mrs. Douglas Mac Arthur. She chatted with us for awhile and she said "I think I hear the General coming." Then in comes General Douglas Mac Arthur. This was right after the war. Maybe in 1949 or 50.
He had just returned to America having been fired from his role of General because he was taking liberties and thought he was bigger than the Government. Harry S. Truman, President Truman fired him, relived him from the command. He was just back from the city, not long and I was on the side of Truman, I didn't think it was right that the General thought he was bigger then all of us. Even though he was a great hero in the South Pacific, Bataan, and all those remarkable battles. He was THE General in the South Pacific where I had served.
He came up and I was rather indifferent, rather cool, even though my heart was pounding so fast. But he was the first great person who stopped to talk to me personally, for something.
He said, "Oh, I've seen you before, Mr. Brown, I've seen you before."
I thought he meant in the war. Because I hadn't done much up until that time and they had to print something to fill up the long column in the playbill. There talked about my war career. I thought he meant in the war where I was a simple young sailor, which of course was a joke as there were millions of people in that war.
He said, "Oh no, no, Mr. Brown! I meant that I saw you in 'Barefoot In Athens'."
That was the play I'd done previous to this one. Maxwell Anderson's play about Socrates and I was Socrates son in that.
He was really quite sweet and I was a dope. That was my first lesson about behaving as if I was a big shot. He didn't play the big shot; he was playing a man who had been misunderstood. I learned a lot then.
I guess the next great person who really, really touched me most was Jascha Heifetz, who is known still to be the greatest violinist of this century. Nobody has hit the quality of performing as he has. He's long dead now, but during one of my first years in California I was lucky enough to be living in the Malibu Colony which is right on the beach. He was my next door neighbor. I had a dog that was a great German Shepherd who would walk along with him as he in the morning. He would carry two sticks with him to protect himself from other dogs, so his hand wouldn't be hurt. Then my dog daemon would walk with him and no dog, nobody, would bother him and he was very grateful.
We'd have a chat in the morning over a cup of coffee looking out over the ocean.
One day, he saw me in a play; I was in "The Deputy". It was playing in Los Angeles.
He came over to see me and grabbed my face, my cheeks, and squeezed them and said "Artist! You're an artist!"
Well, that meant more to me than any money I've ever gotten. That's what I wanted to be, an artist, and not just an actor. I guess and fame did not figure into that equation, or popularity.
What's the best gift you've ever been given?
Now that's easy. Parents at the beginning. My family and friends. There is nothing greater than the love and respect I've received from all these people.
And certainly today, my wife, whom I am grateful for everyday, for having met her and being married to her.
And my children, of course.
You've been made President of the U.S. for the day. What's the first thing you're going to do?
Probably get good nights sleep because I must have been touring the country, making all kinds of campaign speeches. I would go away somewhere and not say a word for a long time.
I've never been interested in Politics, so after that I don't know what I would do. I would probably do what most presidents do, make believe they're important and try to get away with things. Get things done that they've promised and move the career along. Some presidents have greatness about them and are committed to great causes.
I think president Clinton is committed to good causes, even though he's in trouble today.
What's the most daring thing you've ever done?
Becoming an actor.
I was a shy boy, very shy. To dare to go out and face strangers and make a fool of yourself! It took me a long time to learn how to do it without fainting.
Becoming an actor, without a question was the most daring, to even dream the dream was remarkable, but then when I made the commitment and started dramatic school and really knew what acting was about and how special it is to be able to do the magic of it.
Having lived in New York all my life and seen the great ones in the theatre, I think I'm surprised at myself.
Today I don't have that fear. I'm not acting today, I'm long retired from acting.
The last thing I acted in was Carroll O'Connor's "In The Heat Of The Night". He insisted that I be in this thing.
When he offered it to me I had told him, " But, O' Conner, you know that I don't play hero's anymore, you know that."
He said, "I know! I'm playing heroes, you're playing a scoundrel."
A scoundrel? I wasn't use to playing scoundrels, so I took the job. I must say I was very anxious and an old friend of mine was in it as well, Anne Meara, it was.
She said, "you look nervous."
I said, "I am." This was on the first day of shooting, "I'm very nervous."
She said, "What are you nervous about, Rob?"
I said, "Well, I don't know the character yet."
She said, "Oh, go on! The character! You're the character!"
So, I didn't think of anything else, but I thought I'd find some foolishness in myself to be the character that I know I am.
You've been handed the keys to a time machine. Where are you going to go first?
Well, I'd first want to see if the machine worked and if it was going in the right direction. I don't think I'd want to go to the new millennium. I'm not too nuts about the days now, I prefer looking backwards. Not just at my life, but to centuries before my time. I go to Italy for awhile every year and I'm interested in the Renaissance. What was happening in Italy and the birth of the Renaissance in Florence and Vienna, Venice and what people were thinking about. In traveling, I have always been interested in that. Even in the Greeks in the fifth century before Christ. While visiting there I was amazed and delighted by what I've discovered. In history, looking back through the various times pleases me
I'd want to put the machine in reserve and go backwards and participate in yesterday. As today is beyond me. I don't know the culture anymore. I don't feel safe.
What's your favorite hangout?
My favorite hangout, well, it use to be the Players Club in New York. That was Edwin Booth's home. He was the first great American star. He gave it too actors and others for their club that he started a hundred years ago or more. It's a club he started that's on Gramacy Park and I was a member of that for many, many years and loved it. It really was a hangout. I use to live there when I was in town coming in for work or whatever. It had a dozen rooms or so to stay in. The fire department stopped renting those rooms because there were no proper fire escapes. So, I left the club because I wasn't in New York often enough.
I belong to another club, The Lambs, and I drop in there when I'm in New York, and it's mid town, off fifth Ave. on 51st street. Not way down in Gramacy Park. In New York I also hang out in Sardi's restaurant. I still know some of the waiters that were around when I was a young fella. And Vincent Sardi remembers me, so I love that feeling even though it's not the best neighborhood and theatre isn't quite the same either.
I like to hang out at home. It's wonderful at home with my friends.
Your favorite city?
That's a tough one. New York has aspects of it, but it's not the same as I knew it and I'm not the same, as I knew myself there. It almost is, but I tire of it easily because of the pressure and the noise and the people who are no longer just New Yorkers. It's a tourist place, it seems to me. I guess I'm the tourist when I go back, even though I stay in apartments with friends.
Venice was beautiful and the Venicians are lovely. Florence is crowded, so is Venice. Sienna is crowded, so is Tuscany. I Love San Francisco, that's an easier place to be and it's refreshing.
Oh, my wife Elise just had a one-person exhibit of her work at the Fyre Museum in Seattle. We spent some time there because she had to give gallery talks and theatre talks about her work. She is a celebrated painter. I really liked Seattle very much. That's where, of course, Here Come the Brides originated. It was Seattle Territory then, now it's a real city. I really had nothing at all to do with Here Come the Brides but I think I was made honorary mayor there once. I'm not sure, but I think I was. Maybe not. Maybe it's just a fantasy.
I really found the people, the quality; the ease and the generosity of spirit just a beautiful feeling. It's a clean city. I was very impressed with Seattle. So, maybe today I would say Seattle. But, I'm always ready for the next city.
I am more pleased with country side, little towns and villages. Maybe because I was a big city boy. I grew up that way. I find it more peaceful in the smaller areas. I don't require all the excitement that a city offers.
If you could swap lives with someone for a day, who would you trade with?
Nobody.
I've known many, many people who have had great lives and are doing great things. Very wealthy people or great artists. Gee, I wouldn't swap the very lovely life I have. I've never thought of it, but it's a very good question. I have a good life. I'm grateful for it.
What do you think of TV now?
I watch very little TV. What I do watch would be the news, current events, special programming. Films, occasional concerts. I don't think I watch any episodic television. I like Charley Rose in the evening, his interviews. I am the last one to know about television. I like books and good conversation. I've been writing a lot, stories.
I don't think it's nice to say, because I have many friends who do television, I don't want anyone to think I am suggesting I am superior to it. It's just that once life changes, if you're lucky, and my life is full of other things. I occasionally watch a ball game. I like watching football and baseball. Not basketball because I don't know anything about it, really. When the World Series is on and it's a very important game, I just choose a team that day to root for. Something about maybe the color of their uniforms or maybe someone who is pitching that day and I'll say "I like that pitcher" so I'll want that team to win. And maybe the next week or two, I'll choose the other side without realizing that I was rooting for the green hats the week before.
What was the best practical joke played on the HCTB set? What's the best practical joke you've played, ever?
Well, I guess I didn't do that. I guess practical jokes were impractical for me. I tried to keep that set as calm and creative and warm as I could, being the star. The star sets the tone. I had observed when I was doing other episodic television, you'd know not who the boss was, but whom people deferred to. I was the eldest. You know David and Bobby and the girls were all younger. Somehow they gave me that lovely credential of 'Do it your way, we'll follow suit.' It was a really hard working set, but with lots of humor and ease. We laughed a lot. I didn't like playing game often because it might spoil somebody's scene. I remember tricks played on me.
I was very lucky that they gave me my own house. It wasn't a trailer; it was a real house on the lot. We shot mostly on the back lot of Columbia Ranch, Here Come The Brides did. I had a nice living room and they let me pick all the antiques from the prop dept. and the furniture, paintings and décor. I had a kitchen and a bath and shower and a back porch and so on.
There was a beautiful young girl, an actress I had known earlier in New York. She came to visit the set and the first assistant director spotted me with her as we walked back to my house. I was between shots, I was free for a couple of hours, I guess. We were sitting there talking, reminiscing and having coffee and there was a knock on the door. I could tell by the way the assistant director looked at me with a twinkle in his eye as we passed, I kind of suspected what he was thinking "Oh boy, isn't she a dish!" I guess he thought we were going back to play, play house or something. There was a knock on the door, it was closed and the curtains were drawn. I liked it quite and dark. The lamps were on house. I t was a private place. At the door, in costume was this woman of about eighty. She was an extra; I'd seen her on the set, many times. She was a fine, old women. I don't think I had much to say to her except good morning or things like that.
She said, "You wanted to see me?" I didn't understand the question.
I asked her what did she mean and she said, "Oh, Mr. Morgan said you wanted me to come to your room to see you."
I brought her in, gave her a cup of tea and we chatted. She used my telephone to call someone. Then I explained to her what I thought the joke was about. I asked her if she would do something for both of us and she said sure. I told her to smudge her lipstick.
I said, "Really smudge it as if we've been embracing and doing things for an hour."
She said "Oh I'd love too! I'll even open my blouse!"
I said, "Oh, Do that!"
I think that was the best one I'd ever done.Many, many thanks to everyone who submitted questions:
Nancy A., Marsha, Susie, Karen H., Mary K., and Nancy S.
