Written by: Samuel K. Sloan (SoSF Managing News Director)
Yesterday the entertainment industry lost one of its most highly respected members and one of my all-time favorite actors.
Emmy Winner and Tony Award nominated actor Roscoe Lee Browne, the man whose voice could reverberate throughout a soundstage and whose rich tones were only rivaled by another Hollywood icon, James Earl Jones, has died. He was 81.
He died early yesterday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a long battle with cancer, said Alan Nierob, a spokesman for the family.
Roscoe’s career spanned five decades and ranged from stage to big screen, television to cartoon voice work and to the heights of Shakespearean oratory. He also was a poet, a teacher, a writer and, in his younger days, a world-class athlete, winning the 880-yard track and field event at the famous 1952 Millrose Games.
In 1956 Browne set his feet on the thespian path making his first appearance at the New York Shakespeare Festival in a production of “Julius Caesar.” After that outstanding performance, recognition was soon to follow with such landmark performances in the stage productions of Jean Genet’s “The Blacks,” “The Ballad of the Sad Cafe” and “Benito Cereno.”
A great lover of the stage, Browne reluctantly went on the Hollywood circuit and soon found himself in such landmark films as Hitchcock’s “Topaz” and the ultimate polished cook-hero in the John Wayne saga “Cowboys.”
One of his most important scifi films didn’t even include him with any face-time on camera, but his booming voice became one of the main events of “Logan’s Run” as he gave crediblity to the flesh-freezing robot Box. Some other genre related television shows and big screen features Browne appeared in are “The Invaders,” “Planet of the Apes” and “The Haunting of Harrington House.”
In 1992, Browne returned to his first love — the Broadway stage in “Two Trains Running.” The play garnered a Tony for best play and brought Browne a Tony nomination for best supporting actor.
Browne’s impressive voice can be heard as the character Kingpin/Wilson Fisk in 30 different episodes of the “Spider Man” animation series from 1995 to 1998.
His last and most recent completed work was that of narrator in the comedic satire film “Epic Movie” released just this year.
Browne’s beautiful and inspiring poetry are found in the collected works of “Behind the Broken Words,” a poetry anthology stage piece that highlights works of several of history’s greatest poets, including Browne. He and actor Anthony Zerbe had performed an oral reading of these works every year for over 30 years.
Roscoe Lee Browne, dead at 81, has left an indelible inspirational mark on humanity that will never be erased.
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