Roscoe Lee Browne (May 2, 1922 – April 11, 2007) was an American actor and director. He is perhaps best known for his many guest appearances on TV series from the 1970s and 1980s, as well as movies like The Cowboys (1972) with John Wayne, and The World's Greatest Athlete (1973) with John Amos and Jan-Michael Vincent, but his biggest roles were as narrator in Babe and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties, which grossed $400 million combined.
He resisted playing stereotypically black roles, instead performing in several productions with New York City's Shakespeare Festival Theater, Leland Hayward's satirical NBC series That Was the Week That Was, and a poetry performance tour of the United States in addition to his work in television and film. He was the recipient of a Primetime Emmy and a NAACP Image Award, and was nominated for a Tony Award.
Born in Woodbury, New Jersey, Browne was the fourth son of Baptist minister Sylvanus S. Browne and his wife, Lovie Lee (Usher). He graduated from Woodbury Junior-Senior High School in 1939. Browne attended historically black Lincoln University in Pennsylvania, where he was an All-American for the Lincoln Lions track and field team. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in 1946, his college career being interrupted by his wartime service.
During World War II, Browne served in Italy with the United States Army's 92nd Infantry Division and organized the Division's track and field team. After the war, he undertook postgraduate work under the GI Bill at Middlebury College, Columbia University, and the University of Florence. A middle-distance runner, he won two Amateur Athletic Union 1,000-yard national indoor championships.
He occasionally returned to Lincoln University between 1946–52 to teach English, French, and comparative literature. Upon leaving academia, he earned a living for several years selling wine for Schenley Import Corporation. In 1956, he left his job with Schenley to become a full-time professional actor.
In 1950 and 1951 he toured Europe (as a half-miler) with a USA Track and Field team.
Browne was determined not to accept the stereotypical roles routinely offered to African-American actors. He also wanted to do more than act and narrate. Despite the apprehensions of his friends, in the summer of 1956, Browne managed to land the roles of The Soothsayer and Pindarus in Julius Caesar, and one of Petruchio's servants in The Taming of the Shrew directed by Stuart Vaughan and produced by Joseph Papp for New York City's first Shakespeare in the Park. More work with the NY Shakespeare Festival Theater followed.
Browne then voiced an offscreen part as camera operator J.J. Burden in The Connection (1961), his first movie role.
His stage success brought him to the attention of producer Leland Hayward, and in 1964 he began a regular stint as a cast member on Hayward's satirical NBC-TV series That Was the Week That Was.
In 1966, he wrote and made his directorial stage debut with A Hand Is On The Gate, starring Cicely Tyson, James Earl Jones, and Moses Gunn. A lifelong bachelor who coveted his privacy in the turbulent decades of the civil rights revolution, Browne avoided participation in public protests, preferring instead to be "more effective on stage with metaphor... than in the streets with an editorial".
Starting in the late 1960s, Browne was a frequent guest star on TV in both comedy and dramatic shows such as Mannix, All in the Family, Maude, Good Times, Sanford and Son, A Different World and dozens of others.
In The Cowboys (1972), in a role as a camp cook, he led a group of young cowhands avenging the death of John Wayne's character in the movie.
Browne was much in demand for narration and voice-over parts in film and on commercial sound recordings. In 1977, Browne narrated a record album, The Story of Star Wars, which presented an abridged version of the events depicted in the first released film using the dialogue and sound effects. The recording was produced by George Lucas and Alan Livingston.
In 1980, he guest-starred in an episode of Benson with Robert Guillaume. Later that year, he joined the regular cast of Benson's parent show Soap where he played Saunders, the erudite butler who replaces Benson. Browne also appeared as Professor Foster on The Cosby Show in 1986, winning a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series.
He and fellow actor Anthony Zerbe toured the United States with their poetry performance piece Behind the Broken Words. It included readings of poetry, some of it written by Browne, as well as performances of comedy and dramatic works.
Browne found additional success performing in the plays of August Wilson, both on Broadway and at the Pittsburgh Public Theater. He was described as having "a baritone voice like a sable coat", speaking with a strong mid-Atlantic accent. To someone who once said he sounded "too white", Browne replied, "I'm sorry, I once had a white maid." Four years before his death, Browne narrated a series of WPA slave narratives in the HBO film, Unchained Memories (2003).
Browne's directorial credits include a piece called An Evening of Negro Poetry and Folk Music at the Delacorte Theatre and the Public Theatre in New York City in 1966. It was also produced as A Hand Is on the Gate at the Longacre Theatre in New York City in 1966. The production was revived at the Afro-American Studio in New York City, running from 1976 to 1977.
Some year-of-birth records, including the Social Security Death Index, state that Browne was born on May 2, 1922, while other sources claim that he was born three years later, on May 2, 1925. Those sources include The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Variety, the Associated Press and several others, including a Congressional Resolution.