Famous Like Me > Actor > T > Brother Theodore
Profile of Brother Theodore
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Name: |
Brother Theodore |
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Also Know As: |
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Date of Birth: |
11th November 1906 |
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Place of Birth: |
Düsseldorf, Germany |
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Profession: |
Actor |
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From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia
Brother Theodore (born 11 November 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany; died 5 April 2001 in New York City) was a monologuist and comedian known for rambling, stream of consciousness dialogues which he called "stand up tragedy". He was born Theodore Gottleib into a wealthy family in Germany, where his father was a magazine publisher. Theodore attended the University of Cologne. Under Nazi rule, he was imprisoned at Dachau until he signed over his family's fortune for one Reichsmark. After being deported for chess hustling from Switzerland he went to Austria where Albert Einstein, a family friend, helped him escape to the United States. He worked as a janitor at Stanford University, a dockworker in San Francisco and played a bit part in Orson Welles' The Stranger before moving to New York City.
Brother Theodore made a number of movie appearances beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1990s. These roles were mostly small parts in B-movies, although he did provide the voice of Gollum in the 1977 made-for-television animated version of The Hobbit and the follow-up adaptation of The Return of the King. Talk-show viewers probably remember Theodore for his 16 appearances on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman in the 80's, and prior to that his appearances on The Merv Griffin Show and The Joey Bishop Show in the 60's and 70's. In the early 1980s, he was a regular on the Billy Crystal Show. Up until the late 1990s, he was a guest actor in several episodes of Joe Frank's radio show. Just prior to his death from pneumonia, he taped several monologues for the controversial documentary series, Disinformation.
Discography
- (Theodore in an) Entertainment of Sinister and Disconcerting Humor (1955)
- "Proscenium 21 Recorded at Carnegie Hall on May 21, 1955 at Midnight" 33 1/3 RPM 12" and 10" (rare)
- Side A: Tears From a Glass Eye
- Side B: With a Tongue of Madness
- Coral Records Presents... Theodore (in Stereo) (1959)
- Coral Records CRL 57322 33 1/3 RPM 12"
- Side A: 1) Introduction and Berenice 2) The Willow Landscape 3) Curse of the Toad
- Side B: 1) Quadrupedism
- 45rpm Single (1972)
- P.I.P. Records (A Division of Pickwick International, Inc.) PIP 8918 45 RPM 7"
- Side A: Lisolotta Bindel
- Side B: I'm Just Plain Folks
Quotes
- "I am in the prime of my senility."
- "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my sincere wish that immediately after my death, my head be severed from my body, and that it be replaced by a bouquet of broccoli. It's the artist in me."
- "I've gazed into the abyss and the abyss gazed into me, and neither of us liked what we saw."
- "In this best of all possible worlds, everything is in a hell of a mess."
- Going into surgery: "If I die, best wishes for the rest of your life. If I don't — I'll phone you."
- "The best thing is not to be born. But who is as lucky as that? To whom does it happen? Not to one among millions and millions of people."
- "Dear God, If you exist, please help me! And if you don't exist… help me anyway!"
- "What do we know about the beyond? Do we know what's behind the beyond? I'm afraid some of us hardly know what's beyond the behind."
- "I should have known better than to sell roses in a fish market!"
- "You can train a rat. Yes, if you work for hours and days and months and years, you can train a rat. But when you're done, all you'll have is a trained rat!"
Television appearances
- The Joey Bishop Show: 10/31/67, 11/8/67 [dates needed]
- The Merv Griffin Show: [dates needed]
- The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder: 10/31/77
- Late Night with David Letterman (NBC): 9/10/82, 10/20/82, 2/3/83, 5/19/83, 7/8/83, 9/7/83, 2/21/84, 5/16/84, 9/17/84, 12/19/84, 7/8/85, 10/31/85, 9/17/86, 7/24/87, 1/13/88, 2/17/89 Source:alt.fan.letterman Audio:The Party is Over
Radio appearances
- Joe Frank's radio shows. Episodes: The Decline of Spengler, The End, A Tour of the City, Black Light
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