Roscoe Lee Browne
(With Excursions into Divers Other Topics)

We know that in Hollywood things are not what they seem. The characters played usually have no bearing from the actors' real lives or previous backgrounds. Still it comes as a shock for those who learn that William Fawcett - the old, grizzled, and cranky ranch hand "Pete" on the Saturday morning television show "Fury" - had been a professor of theater at Michigan State University in the 1940's.

On the other hand, it is certainly not a surprise to learn that Roscoe Lee Browne had been a professor at Lincoln University. If any actor exuded a professorial air, it was Roscoe.

Whenever Roscoe appeared he stood out. Who can forget Jebediah Nightlinger in The Cowboys? Roscoe not only played the articulate and eloquent cook, but he provided the link between the crusty cattleman Will Anderson (John Wayne) and the kids - the cowboys of the Cowboys.

The final part of the movie is where the cattle rustler "Long Hair" Asa Watts (played by Bruce Dern) kills Will and takes the herd for him and his men. Then when things start going wrong - one by one Long Hair's men are killed - he stumbles across the chuck wagon tended by Roscoe. Realizing the insolent cook was behind everything, Long Hair is about to lynch him. Jebediah asks for time to atone to his maker and Asa gives him one minute.

Jebediah humbly intones:

I regret trifling with married women. I'm thoroughly ashamed at cheating at cards. I deplore my occasional departures from the truth. Forgive me for taking your name in vain, my Saturday drunkenness, my Sunday sloth. Above all, forgive me for the men I've killed in anger ... and those I am about to.

The action that follows was what gave the movie - despite the quality acting and high production standards - some panned reviews. To go from a boy to a man, the message seemed to say, you had to kill someone.

Roscoe Lee Browne was born in New Jersey. Sources vary as to the exact date but 1922 or 1925 are both listed (private research suggests the earlier date is correct). His parents were Sylvanus and Lovie Lee Browne. Sylvanus was a Baptist minister, and at that time, the church leaders were also the leaders of black education and culture. Roscoe graduated from Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he was not only an excellent student but also a champion track star.

Roscoe's tenure as a professor was evidently not long (the references state he taught French and literature), and he had been working as a sales representative for a few years when he decided to become an actor. With his perfect diction and natural stage presence, he landed significant parts almost immediately. In 1956 he appeared as the Soothsayer in Joseph Papp's first Shakespeare in the Park series and next took the role of the Jester in King Lear. Then in 1961 Roscoe began acting in movies, and it was inevitable that he went into television.

Roscoe began acting when network television as we know and love was ten years old. He specialized in playing intellectual characters, even if they had little formal education. He was nominated for an Emmy for his role as Charlie Jeffers in "The Escape Artist" in the first season of Barney Miller. Charlie was a tea drinking Aldous Huxley fan and habitual criminal who was sentenced to 1 to 5 years for grand theft of auto, but had accumulated an extra 25 years for his multiple escapes.

Barney:	Mr. Jeffers, I was just talking to some of the reporters downstairs. They tell me that you've spent thirty years in jail for stealing one automobile.
Charlie:	It was one hell of a car.

But without doubt one of Roscoe's most powerful roles - and one of his earliest - was in Benito Cereno. This play was one-third of Robert Lowell's 1964 trilogy The Old Glory where each act presents a self-contained tale unrelated to the others.

Although generally praised as an innovative work of theater, the Old Glory has rarely been performed. For one thing if you use all three acts, the performance does run long. And even - as has been the case - the theater drops the first play, Endecott and the Red Cross, the second act, My Kinsman, Major Molineux, leaves the audience scratching their heads.

That leaves Benito Cereno which has a plot most audiences can follow. But the play, alas, does not have a happy ending. The fate of Roscoe and the other black characters was so tragic that the playwright found himself open to claims he opposed the Civil Rights Movement. Robert was flabbergasted and denied the accusation vehemently.

Benito Cereno starts out with Amasa Delano, an American captain of the sealing vessel the President Adams, sitting on deck with his first mate, John Perkins. The ship has dropped anchor in the harbor of a small uninhabited island off the coast of Trinidad. As they sit Captain Delano, played by Lester Rawlins, suggests that Perkins (Jack Ryland) take up pipe smoking.

Captain Delano:

You should take up smoking, Perkins. There was a beautiful dumb English actress - I saw her myself once in London. They wanted her to look profound, so she read Plato and the Bible and Benjamin Franklin and thought about them every minute. She still looked like a moron. Then they told her to think about nothing. She thought about nothing and looked like Socrates. That's smoking, Perkins, you think about nothing and look deep.

Captain Delano quickly establishes himself as 100% patriotic when Perkins expresses concern about the last election.

Perkins:	Excuse me, Sir, I have been wanting to ask you a question. Don't you think our President, Mr, Jefferson, is lowering himself by being so close to the French? I'd feel a lot safer in this unprotected place if we'd elected Mr. Adams instead of Mr. Jefferson.
Captain Delano:	The better man ran second! Come to think of it, he rather let us down by losing the election just after we had named this ship the President Adams.

Nevertheless Captain Delano accepts the sentiment of the country, even when Perkins mentions the unsavory rumor that the new president had fathered two black children.

Captain Delano:

I'm surprised you swallow such Federalist bilge, Perkins! I told you Mr. Jefferson is a gentleman and an American; when a man's in office, Sir, we all pull behind him!

Obviously Captain Delano never met ...

Well, never mind.

As the two men banter back and forth, they see a ship coming into the harbor. It seems to be adrift, and looking through his telescope, Captain Delano, makes out the name from the tarnished letters as the San Domingo.

Captain Delano sees the rigging is hanging loose but the people on deck seem to be covered in cowls like monks. Then he sees that they are slaves being transported to the Americas from Africa. Perkins calls for the whaleboat to be lowered and the two men are rowed to the new ship.

When they climb on deck, they find the deck in disorder. Now manned by only a few Spanish sailors, the San Domingo is captained by Don Benito Cereno (Frank Langella). When he arrives Don Benito is constantly attended by his faithful servant, Babu, who is played by Roscoe.

Don Benito tells a story of disaster: storms around Cape Horn, being caught in the doldrums, men dying of scurvy and yellow fever.

Don Benito:	It's now a hundred and ninety days... This ship, well manned, well officered, with several cabin passengers, carrying a cargo of Paraguay tea and Spanish cutlery. That parcel of Negro slaves, less than four score now, was once three hundred souls. Ten sailors and three officers fell from the mainyard off the Horn; part of our rigging fell overboard with them, as they were beating down the icy sail. We threw away all our cargo, Broke our waterpipes1, Lashed them on deck this was the chief cause of our suffering.
Captain Delano:	I must interrupt you, Captain. How did you happen to have three officers on the mainyard? I never heard of such a disposal, it goes against all seamanship.
Babu:	Our officers never spared themselves; if there was any danger, they rushed in to save us without thinking.
Captain Delano:	I can't understand such an oversight.

Don Benito adds that he ordered the slaves to be released from confinement.

Don Benito:	I gave them the freedom of my ship. I did not think they were crates or cargo or cannibals. But it was Babu - under God, I swear I owe my life to Babu! He calmed his ignorant, wild brothers, never left me, saved the San Domingo.
Babu:	Poor, poor Master. He is still a rich man. Don't speak of Babu. Babu is the dirt under your feet. He did his best.
Captain Delano:	You are a good fellow, Babu. You are the salt of the earth. I envy you, Don Benito; he is no slave, Sir, but your friend.

But there was one slave, a large powerful man named Atufal, that was still kept in chains. At one point, Atufal, who Babu says was a king in Africa, is summoned.

Don Benito commands King Atufal to ask pardon. But Atufal remains silent and is then led away.

Once more. Captain Delano is perplexed.

Captain Delano:	What did King Atufal do?
Babu:	He used the Spanish flag for toilet paper.
Captain Delano:	That's treason.

More and more things don't make sense. Soon after the ritual with King Atufal, Babu says it's time for Don Benito's shave. They all retire to the cabin where Delano continues speaking with Don Benito.

Babu prepares everything. Then he pulls out the Spanish flag to serve as a shaving bib. Captain Delano is flabbergasted.

Captain Delano:

The Castle and the Lion of Spain! Why, Don Benito, this is the Flag of Spain you're using! It's well that it's only I and not the King of Spain who sees this.

He then condescends to give Don Benito the benefit of the doubt.

Captain Delano:	All's one, though, I guess, in this carnival world. I see you like the gay colors as much as Babu.
Babu:	The bright colors draw the yellow fever from Master's mind.

Eventually it comes out that the Africans had seized control of the ship following a revolt. The owner of the ship, Don Alexandro Aranda, was killed along with all but a few of the Spanish sailors. Don Aranda's body was then reduced to a skeleton to serve as the ship's figurehead, but was being concealed under a tarpaulin.

All the time the Americans were on board, Babu was holding a knife to Don Benito's back, forcing him to obtain information so they could sieze the American ship. Then they would make the Americans sail them back to Africa.

But Perkins had used his time to look over the ship, and he discovered the skeleton of Don Aranda. He ordered some of the sailors to return to the ship and bring back armed reinforcements.

Under Captain Delano's now forceful questioning the revolt is revealed. Just as soon as it looks like Captain Delano may be killed, the American sailors show up and shoot down virtually all of the slaves.

But from the heap of corpses, the uninjured Babu jumps up. He proclaims that he, not Atufal, was the king back in Africa. Captain Delano then points his pistol at Babu and fires.

Benito Cereno is based on the short novel of the same name by Herman Melville (yes, Herman Melville of Moby Dick fame). The book has left historians wondering just what Herman really felt about slavery.

Generally when authors don't state their own views, the critics and historians shape them into their own image. So Herman, though a New Englander, has been cast as everything from a stanch abolitionist to indifferently accepting America's Peculiar Institution. The debate as to what Herman really thought rages on.

Although the play and the book follow each other closely, there were some important differences. In the play, Captain Delano has a wife back in Massachusetts. In the novel, Captain Delano is unmarried and his ship is named The Bachelor's Delight. Unmarried men, thought Herman, were naíve bumpkins, and a story with a bachelor ignoring clues for a truth that was right under his nose made perfect sense.

In the book, the revolt on the San Dominick (not the San Domingo) is not overcome by the arrival of armed American sailors. Instead as Captain Delano shoves off in the whaleboat to return to his own ship, Don Benito jumps from the deck into the water. After he is pulled into the boat, Don Benito tells Captain Delano what really happened. The other whaleboats are manned and the Americans reboard the San Dominick and recapture the ship. Not long afterwards, Don Benito, his health broken, dies.

To some critics, having slaves lead a revolt only to be annihilated was a not too veiled warning for anyone trying to work for Civil Rights. Why else would an author use such an ending?

As to why Herman or Robert had the revolt fail doesn't require any discussions on Herman's views on ephemeral conjugal bliss or speculation about Robert's views of civil rights. They wrote that the revolt failed because that's simply what happened.

Yes, Benito Cereno was based on a real event. The few changes Herman made from the actual history were surprisingly minor. Herman didn't even change the name of the American captain.

Amasa Delano (1763-1823) was the captain of an American sealing and merchant vessel, the Perseverance. On a voyage in 1805 he was sailing off the coast of Chile when he encountered a ship in distress. The Spanish ship, the Tryal (or Trial), was captained by, yes, a Don Benito Cereno, whose name for some reason Captain Delano spelled "Bonito Sereno" even though he had documents with the correct spelling

Herman followed Captain Delano's account closely. Don Benito and a number of the Spanish sailors did indeed jump from the deck of the Tryal and were picked up by the Americans. Delano then opened fire on the slaves with a cannon. But the Spanish ship, now manned by the slaves, continued to pull away. The American whaleboats were manned and caught up with the Tryal. About 30 slaves were killed before the ship was retaken.

The Americans, we must point out, were not planning to restore the ship to Don Benito. Instead Captain Delano told his crew that by the laws of the sea, the Tryal was considered "lost". Therefore the value of the ship, its cargo, and of course any recaptured slaves, would be assessed by a maritime court according to the rules of salvage for the crew of the Perseverance. That would amount to about $100,000 - a huge amount of money at the time and about $17,000,000 in today's cash. Even if the Americans courteously returned half of the sum to Don Benito the crew would get enough to keep them going for years.

The surviving slaves, many with horrendous wounds, were chained together. That Captain Delano had some humanity - or at least an eye for a profit - can't be denied as he had to restrain both his men and the Spanish sailors from killing the survivors outright. Don Benito had, in fact, stabbed one of the prisoners but was disarmed by Captain Delano. Any further such action, Captain Delano warned, would incur his displeasure.

Three days later, August 23, the ships landed at Concepción, Chile. The men gave depositions as to what happened and so there is a full record of what is one of the most interesting and yet relatively unknown instances of a slave revolt on a ship.

And no, Don Benito did not succumb. In fact, he quickly became un mejor dolor en el culo for Captain Delano. You see, once they were back on shore, Don Benito switched his story.

Far from thanking the brave American for saving his life, Don Benito now had affidavits sworn out that accused Captain Delano of being a "pirate". Obviously he didn't want to admit to any liability in the loss of the ship.

However, the initial depositions - including one by Don Benito - completely supported Captain Delano. So the Spanish viceroy in Chile immediately ordered Don Benito to pay $8,000 to the American, who also received a gold medal in appreciation from the King of Spain. And no, the Americans did not get their $100,000.

An original cast recording of the play was released in 1965. Although used copies are available, they are vinyl LP's and the recording has never been issued in a modern format. But in 1967, the cast - Roscoe, Lester, Frank, and Jack - performed the play on television. Although there have been some film remakes, these have been few and far between and not necessarily in English.

Of course, actors do not star only in hits and major Broadway productions. In the Days of the Three Networks "anthology" series provided steady roles, particularly for up-and-coming and character actors. Each episode of an anthology series was unrelated to the other shows and the casts varied from week to week.

One of Roscoe's anthology appearances was in "Watts Made Out of Thread" for the Insight series. Insight was a religiously themed series created by the TV producing Paulist priest, Reverend Ellwood "Bud" Kieser. The series enjoyed an incredibly long run for the time - 1961 to 1984.

What was really unusual for a proselytizing religious series was how many well-known actors, some of whom even then were iconic, appeared. Some of these celebrities were - and to skip this rather lengthy list click here - Joseph Campanella, Jane Wyatt (the mom on Father Knows Best and Spock's mother on Star Trek), Joan Swift, Howard Da Silva (Benjamin Franklin in 1776), Julie Adams, Elisha Cook Jr. (very prolific character actor), Irene Dunne (actress from Hollywood's Golden Age), Lawrence Dobkin, Gene Hackman (Buck Barrow in Bonnie and Clyde), Bernie Kopell (Siegfried in Get Smart and the doctor on the Love Boat), Efrem Zimbalist Jr. (Inspector Lewis Erskine in The FBI), Greg Morris (Barney on Mission Impossible), Jacqueline Scott, Vic Tayback (one of the gangster bosses on the Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action" and Mel in Alice), Arthur O'Connell, Bill Bixby (the father in the Coutship of Eddie's Father and the magician on The Magician), Harvey Lembeck (The Phil Silvers Show and Eric Von Zipper in 1960's beach movies), Norma Crane, Alan Dexter, Julie Sommars, Louis Gossett Jr. (the DI in An Officer and a Gentleman and Anwar Sadat in Sadat), John Doucette (gravely voiced character in many shows), Jonathan Harris (the conniving, sniveling, and cowardly Dr. Zachary Smith in Lost in Space), Steve Landesberg (Dietrich on Barney Miller), Nehemiah Persoff (ubiquitous actor on stage and screen), Wendy Smith Howard, Martin Sheen (yes, Martin Sheen), Diane Sommerfield, Juanita Moore, Mark Lenard (Spock's dad), Elizabeth Allen, Lee Meriwether, Diane Baker, Ted Cassidy (Lurch on The Addams Family), John Astin (Gomez), Deborah Winters, Marlo Thomas (That Girl), Edward Asner (Lou Grant of Mary Tyler Moore Show and Lou Grant), Bill Mumy ("It's a Good Life" of the Twilight Zone and the son on Lost in Space), Bob Newhart (The Bob Newhart Show), Gregory Sierra (Julio on Sanford and Son and Chano on Barney Miller), Ellen Burstyn, James Doohan (Scotty, of course), Sally Kirkland, Kim Hunter, Ralph Moody, Roger C. Carmel (Harry Mudd on Star Trek), William Shatner (Captain Kirk, of course), Elliot Gould, Roger Mobley (Packy on Fury), Gary Burghoff (Radar O'Reilly on MASH), William Windom, Ron Howard and brother Clint, Diane Shalet, Robert Emhardt, Jack Albertson (The Man of Chico and the Man), Raymond Massey (iconic portrayer of Abraham Lincoln), John Ritter (Three's Company), Ron Glass (Detective Harris on Barney Miller), John Forsythe (the uncle of Bachelor Father and Detective Alvin Dewey in In Cold Blood), Donna Mills (Ellie Mae Clampett on Beverly Hillbillies), William Marshall (Blacula), Beverly Garland, Sharon Farrell, Elizabeth Ashley, Marvin Miller, Della Reese, Sally Kellerman (Hotlips in the movie MASH), Joe Flynn (Captain Binghamton in McHale's Navy), June Lockhart (Timmy's mom on Lassie and the mom on Lost in Space), Irene Tedrow, Ed Begley, Shannon Farnon, Cindy Williams, Carroll O'Connor (Archie Bunker on All in the Family), Don Grady (Robbie on My Three Sons), Joyce Van Patten, Brandon De Wilde (the kid in Shane), Martin Milner (Tod Stiles on Route 66 and Officer Pete Malloy on Adam 12), Richard Egan, Jack Klugman, Ed Begley Jr., William Schallert (Patty Duke's dad on The Patty Duke Show), James Franciscus (Mr. Novak on Mr. Novak), Jeff Corey (prolific actor who was the dastardly Cloud Minder on the Star Trek episode, The Cloud Minders), Barry Sullivan (actor in too many movies to name), Alice Ghostley, Dick York (Darrin Stephens, Samantha's husband on Bewitched), Vera Miles (Lila Crane, the sister of the embezzling secretary in the original Psycho), Andrew Duggan, Richard Jaeckel, Joyce Jameson (specializer in dippy blonde parts), Steve Forrest, Frank Ramirez, Gail Fisher, Geraldine Brooks, Steve Franken, Harvey Korman (The Carol Burnett Show), Vaughn Taylor, Patty Duke (Cousins Patty and Cathy on The Patty Duke Show), Randolph Mantooth, Gene Rayburn (long-time host of The Match Game), Beau Bridges (Rooster Cogburn in the True Grit remake and son of Lloyd Bridges), Ida Lupino (actor and director), Jane Wyman (Falcon Crest), John Van Dreelen, Dwayne Hickman (Dobie Gillis of Dobie Gillis), Albert Brooks, Max Gail (Detective Wojciehowicz on Barney Miller), Marty Feldman (yes, Mary Feldman), Ernie Banks, Ricardo Montalban, Flip Wilson, John Randolph, Barney Phillips, John Dehner, Everett Sloane, James Gregory, Carol Burnett, Norman Fell, Ken Lynch, Richard Benjamin (Goodby Columbus), Diary of a Mad Housewife, and Westworld), Bud Cort (of Brewster McCloud and Harold and Maude), Barbara Hale, Bert Freed, Warren Oates (John Dillinger in Dillinger), McClean Stevenson, Harold Gould (among many other roles, the part of Professor Baxter in The Big Bus), Don Gordon, Keenan Wynn (often cast as a bad guy although he was the son of comedian Ed Wynn), Ford Rainey, Ivan Dixon (Kinch on Hogan's Heroes), Nichelle Nichols, Howard Duff, Werner Klemperer (Colonel Klink on Hogan's Heroes), Maria Grimm, Ellen Geer, Lloyd Bochner (played many parts including the code breaker on the Twilight Zone episode To Serve Man who too late hears the warning "It's a cookbook!"), Leslie Parrish, William Devane (John Kennedy in The Missiles of October), Jeffrey Hunter (the original Captain Kirk role of Christopher Pike on the un-broadcast pilot), Albert Salmi, Dorothy Malone, John Zoller, Lee Weaver, Ann Sothern (The Ann Sothern Show and the voice of the Mother/the Car in My Mother,the Car), Harold J. Stone, Peter Haskell, Elizabeth Lucas, Marcia Wallace, Kristina Holland, Woodrow Parfrey (character actor for many shows and movies including Papillon), Katharine Bard, Virginia Capers, Melissa Sue Anderson, Dick Gautier (Hymie the Robot on Get Smart), Joshua Bryant, Walter Matthau (Oscar Madison on The Odd Couple), Charles Aidman (Ageng Jeremey Pike on some Wild Wild West episodes), Celeste Holm, Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker of the Star Wars movies), Robert Harris, Cicely Tyson (award winning actress in many shows and movies including The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman), Marshall Reed, Leif Erickson (rancher John Cannon on The High Chaparral), and many, many more.

(End of List: To return to the top click here.)

The shows on Insight could have a Theater of the Absurd feel. In "Watts Made Out of Thread" a swindling businessman named Eddie - played by Elliott Gould - commits suicide and as he lies dead on the bed, he is berated by a portrait of his mother (Alice Ghostley). Suddenly Roscoe appears as a jazz musician, a character who is never explicitly named.

Roscoe's main beef is that Elliott - that is, Eddie - sold him a cheap suit. But it turns out that Roscoe - a trumpet playing black man, mind you - is actually Jesus Christ. This was certainly a most unusual and rather controversial portrayal particularly in 1968.

In another twist of interest to Hollywood historians, this episode was penned by the future author of The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty. The Exorcist - arguably the movie that launched America's inability to separate movie and television fantasy from reality - is in a Personal CooperToons Opinion, one of the most overrated and downright boring films ever made.

Roscoe never had a series of his own, but he did appear as a semi-regular in programs like Soap and Falcon Crest. As you might expect, he was also the perfect narrator and voice-over artist and was a regular in the animated Spiderman series.

Over the span of his nearly fifty year career, Roscoe won a number of acting awards: the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle Award, the Obies, and Emmys. Sadly Roscoe died in 2007 never having received an Academy Award - a travesty for sure.

References

"Browne, Roscoe Lee (1925-2007), Robert Fikes, BlackPast.org

"Roscoe Lee Browne", Encyclopaedia Britannica.

"Roscoe Lee Browne: Actor Renowned for His Sonorous Voice", Ronald Bergan, The Guardian, June 20, 2007.

"Roscoe Lee Browne, 81, Actor of Stage and Screen, Dies", Campbell Robertson, The New York Times, April 12, 2007.

Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons, Scott Wilson, McFarland and Company, Third Edition, 2016.

"Theater: 'Endecott and the Red Cross'", Clive Barnes, The New York Times, May 7, 1968.

"Roscoe Lee Browne", Internet Movie Data Base

"Roscoe L. Browne", Social Security Death Index.

"Escape Artist", Hal Linden (Actor), Roscoe Lee Browne (Guest Actor), Ron G.lass (Actor), Jack Soo (Actor), Gregory Sierra (Actor), Writers: Howard Leeds (Writer), Danny Arnold (Writer), Naom Pitlik (Director) Barney Miller, Internet Movie Data Base, April 10, 1975.

"Delano, Amasa and Samuel", Drew Archival Library, Duxbury Rural and Historical Society.

"Who Ain't a Slave? Historical Fact and the Fiction of 'Benito Cereno'", Greg Grandin, Chronicle of Higher Education, December 16, 2013.

"The Real Amasa Delano (1763-1823)", Melville's Benito Cereno, Anything and Everything Benito Cereno, April 23, 2013.

"Amasa Delano and the Dialogics of Honesty", Henry Hughes, Frederick Douglass and Herman Melville: A Sesquicentennial Celebration, Conference, New Bedford, Massachusetts, June 25, 2005.

Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres: Comprising Three Voyages Round the World; Together with a Voyage of Survey and Discovery, in the Pacific Ocean and Oriental Islands, Amasa Delano, E. G. House, 1817.

"Watts Made Out of Thread", Insight, Roscoe Lee Browne (Actor), Harold Gould (Actor), Alice Ghostley (Actor), William Peter Blatty (Writer), Jack Shea (Director), John Furia (Producer), Ellwood Kieser, CSP (Presenter, Executive Producer), Internet Movie Data Base.