By ROBERT JABLON
Associated Press Writer

LOS ANGELES - Actor Roscoe Lee Browne, whose rich voice and dignified bearing brought him an Emmy Award and a Tony nomination, has died. He was 81.

Browne died early Wednesday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center after a long battle with cancer, said Alan Nierob, a spokesman for the family.

Browne's career included classic theater to TV cartoons. He also was a poet and a former world-class athlete.

His deep, cultured voice was heard narrating the 1995 hit movie "Babe." On screen, his character often was smart, cynical and well-educated, whether a congressman, a judge or a butler.

Born to a Baptist minister in Woodbury, N.J., Browne graduated from historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he later returned to teach comparative literature and French. He also was a track star, winning the 880-yard run in the 1952 Millrose Games.

Browne was selling wine for an import company when he decided to become a full-time actor in 1956 and had roles that year in the inaugural season of the New York Shakespeare Festival in a production of "Julius Caesar."

In 1961, he starred in an English-language version of Jean Genet's play "The Blacks."

Two years later, he was The Narrator in a Broadway production of "The Ballad of the Sad Cafe," a play by Edward Albee from a novella by Carson McCullers. In a front page article on the advances made by blacks in the theater, the New York Times noted that Browne's understudy was white.

He won an Obie Award in 1965 for his role as a rebellious slave in the off-Broadway "Benito Cereno."

In movies, he was a spy in the 1969 Alfred Hitchcock feature "Topaz" and a camp cook in 1972's "The Cowboys," which starred John Wayne.

"Some critics complained that I spoke too well to be believable" in the cook's role, Browne told The Washington Post in 1972. "When a critic makes that remark, I think, if I had said, 'Yassuh, boss' to John Wayne, then the critic would have taken a shine to me."

On television, he had several memorable guest roles. He was a snobbish black lawyer trapped in an elevator with bigot Archie Bunker in an episode of the 1970s TV comedy "All in the Family" and the butler Saunders in the comedy "Soap." He won an Emmy in 1986 for a guest role as Professor Foster on "The Cosby Show."

In 1992, Browne returned to Broadway in "Two Trains Running," one of August Wilson's acclaimed series of plays on the black experience. It won the Tony for best play and brought Browne a Tony nomination for best featured (supporting) actor.

The New York Times said he portrayed "the wry perspective of one who believes that human folly knows few bounds and certainly no racial bounds. The performance is wise and slyly life-affirming."

Browne also wrote poetry and included some of it along with works by masters such as Lawrence Ferlinghetti and William Butler Yeats in "Behind the Broken Words," a poetry anthology stage piece that he and Anthony Zerbe performed annually for three decades.

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tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

My first time seeing him was in this movie..




A great actor indeed

I read this earlier

yep, he was a great one. He was also in "Uptown Saturday Night" portraying a role similar to what Clarence Williams portrayed in "I'm Gonna Git You Sucka"....it seems all the greats one are leaving the land of the living...

I will forever remember his voice... He really had a great voice.

I've seen him in lots of movies and on tv.

I didn't know the name, but I definitely have seen him! He lived a long life, though.

Rl was the man. R>I>P

missfee said:

Yep...Congresssman Lincoln. Paula Kelly played his wife, 'Leggy Peggy'.

I've watched Mr. Browne on the big and small screen ever since I was little. Every week I'd see him on some TV show, like "All in the Family" or "Sandford & Son". Great talent.

theAudience said:

Browne & Zerbe were in the 1970 movie, "The Liberation of L.B. Jones, with Lee J. Cobb, Lola Falana & Yaphet Kotto. Check it out - powerful film.

awwwww R.I.P

It's like an exodus. A sad exodus of black Hollywood icons.

dangit.

i hated him for replacing benson as a kid. (not knowing then that benson went on to star in his own show).


rip.

Right when I saw his name on Yahoo, I thought of his distinctive voice. I definitely remember seeing him on All in the Family and The Cosby Show. RIP

He was awesome on the Cosby show.