Roscoe Lee Browne Dies at 81

The “voice” has been silenced with the news that Roscoe Lee Browne died Wednesday after a long battle with cancer. He was 81.

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 supporting actor.

Starting in the late 1960's, Browne increasingly became a guest star on TV on both comedy and dramatic shows like “Mannix,” “All In The Family,” “Sanford and Son,” “The Cosby Show” and dozens of other shows. He also was a regular on the sitcom “Soap” where he played Saunders, the erudite butler from 1979 to 1981 replacing Robert Guillaume who went on to his own show “Benson.” Incidentally, Browne guest starred on “Benson” with Guillaume. His appearances on “The Cosby Show” also drew acclaim as well winning an Emmy in 1986 for his guest role as Professor Foster.

"Some critics complained that I spoke too well to be believable" in the cook's role in The Cowboys, 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."

Browne also lent his mellifluous baritone to the Oscar-nominated film, Babe and the sequel, Babe: Pig in the City. Four over four decades, Browne’s onscreen persona of class and dignity was his defining hallmark. A contemporary of Sidney Poitier, Ossie Davis and James Earl Jones, Browne was part of a vanguard of leading black actors in the traditionally white New York theater world and later gained acclaim for giving body and soul to over 100 characters in his long, storied acting career.

Browne made his film debut in 1961 and starred in many hit films including Black Like Me, Up Tight, The Liberation of L.B. Jones, Superfly T.N.T. and Uptown Saturday Night. Although he would continue to work on feature films, it was in television that Browne made his true impact.

He showed great versatility in a plethora of guest appearances in shows from “ “The Flip Wilson Show,” “The Streets of San Francisco,” “Good Times,” “Starsky and Hutch,” “Maude,” “Soap,” “Magnum P.I.,” “227,” “A Different World,” “New York Undercover,” “Cosby,” “ER,” “The Proud Family,” “The Shield,” “Law and Order” and “Will and Grace.”

Three memorable performances from Roscoe Lee Browne

The Liberation of L.B. Jones (1970)
After his wife has an affair with a white policeman, a wealthy black man (Browne) files for divorce in this violent tale of racism in the south.

Up Tight (1968)
A desperate African-American man betrays his friend, a black militant leader, for some money to help feed his girlfriend's children, and then becomes the object of a manhunt by a militant group.

The Cowboys (1972)
Wil Andersen finds himself with a herd of cattle which he has to get to market before the winter sets in, but he has no men to help him. He turns to a group of young school boys as his last hope to get the job done. There is no better training for these boys than hands-on as they don't know what they are in for. They set out as schoolboys but return as Cowboys.

This feature also appeared on BET.com.