Roscoe Lee Browne, a stage, film and television actor known for his rich voice, died early yesterday morning at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 81 and lived in Los Angeles.
The cause was cancer, said Alan Nierob, a spokesman.
Mr. Browne came to acting somewhat late, after gaining fame as a track star in the early 1950s. But he soon became part of a vanguard of leading black actors in the traditionally white New York theater world. He began as a fixture of New York Shakespeare Festival productions and then in 1961 joined James Earl Jones in the original cast of a long running Off Broadway production of “The Blacks” by Jean Genet.
But he broke out with his portrayal of the mutinous slave Babu in a 1964 production of “Benito Cereno,” a one-act that was part of Robert Lowell’s trilogy “The Old Glory.”
Mr. Browne found more success off than on Broadway, where he performed in several short-lived plays in the 1960s, including Edward Albee’s adaptation of Carson McCuller’s “Ballad of the Sad Cafe,” in which he played the role of the Narrator, and “A Hand Is on the Gate: An Evening of Negro Poetry and Folk Music,” which he also directed.
He would not be in a successful Broadway show until 1983, as the Right Rev. J. D. Montgomery in Tommy Tune’s production of “My One and Only.” His last appearance on Broadway, in the 1992 production of August Wilson’s “Two Trains Running,” earned him a Tony nomination.
By that time he had become a recognizable face — and voice — in film and television, starting with the film “The Connection” (1962), a realistic portrayal of drug addicts. He went on to appear in Hitchcock’s “Topaz” (1969); “The Liberation of L. B. Jones” (1970); and “The Mambo Kings” (1992).
On television, Mr. Browne often played high-brow characters because of his distinctive voice and stately bearing. He twice appeared on “All in the Family,” much to the bigoted Archie Bunker’s dismay, and played a recurring role on “Soap.” In 1986 he won an Emmy Award for an episode of “The Cosby Show” and continued to appear regularly on television series, including “A Different World” and “Law and Order.”
His voice was also well employed, narrating the movie “Babe” and several documentaries, and participating in spoken-word works with the Boston Pops, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and other orchestras.
Roscoe Lee Browne was born on May 2, 1925, in Woodbury, N.J., the son of a Baptist preacher. After graduating in 1946 from Lincoln University, a historically black college in Pennsylvania, Mr. Browne pursued a postgraduate degree at Middlebury College.
He returned to Lincoln to teach French and comparative literature, but at the same time was becoming an international track star, competing internationally. In 1951 he won the world championship in the 800-yard dash.
Capitalizing on that recognition he was hired by Schenley Import Corporation, a wine and liquor importer, where he worked as a sales representative until 1956. One night he decided, during dinner with friends, that he would become an actor. The next day he auditioned for, and won, a role in a production at the New York Shakespeare Festival, which was still in its infancy.
“I remember when I chose acting,” he said in a 1989 interview with The Los Angeles Times. “I thought, ‘This is it — for the time being.’ I didn’t think I was finished yet. I still don’t. I keep thinking about what I should be doing.”
