Once in the Spotlight
I want to take a moment and remember our long forgot actors! One in particular that stood out to me was Robert Guillaume. A man that went through the most horrific times in history and still came out on top of it all and never gave up!
How It Started ~
Robert Guillaume was born Robert P. Williams on November 30, 1927, in St. Louis, Missouri. His grandmother, Jeanette Williams, raised Robert and his siblings. Robert went to St. Nicholas School where he was noticed to be a promising singer. As a young man Robert idolized Paul Robeson, Roland Hayes, and William Warfield. (Very talented musicians of the 30s-40s) Robert was expelled by St. Joseph’s High School before he could graduate on the grounds for some serious school skipping. He joined the United States Army in 1945, he served until 1947. Robert eventually returned to St. Joseph’s High School, he graduated and from there and went on to work as a postal clerk and a streetcar driver while attending St. Louis University and Washington University. He majored in music and In 1957 he won a nine week classical music summer scholarship to Aspen, Colorado. In Colorado he met Russell and Rowena Jelliffe who owned the Karamu House Theater in Ohio and invited him to join the theatre.
The Beginning of A Career ~
At Karamu Robert changed his name from Williams to Guillaume (French for Williams) He started taking acting lessons, and met his good friend Ron O’Neal. Ron would later cast him in Superfly TNT in 1973 and in 1959, Robert toured Europe with Quincy Jones, Clark Terry, and Harold Nicholas in the musical Free and Easy.
He spent most of the 1960s and 1970s in musical theatre and drama, and later Robert appeared in Kwamina in 1961; Fly Blackbird in 1962; Tambourines to Glory in 1963; Golden Boy in 1965; Porgy and Bess from 1965 through 1972; Purlie in 1971; Othello in 1973; and Guys and Dolls in 1976.
Moving Forward ~
In 1968 he made his first television appearance on Diahann Carroll’s Julia. Many programs followed, but Robert became a star when he won an Emmy Award playing a butler named Benson, on ABC’s hit sitcom, Soap in 1979. Robert rewrote the role of Benson DuBois in his own sitcom, Benson, which ran from 1979 to 1986. He was nominated five times for Best Actor in a comedy series. Robert won another Emmy in 1985, and wrote The Robert Guillaume Show, the first comedy about an interracial family, in 1989. Then in 1994, he became the voice of Rafiki, in the Walt Disney’s The Lion King, and its sequels!
A Fond Farewell ~
He was the producer and director of John Grin’s Christmas in 1988, he also produced The Kid with the 2000 I.Q in 1983. After suffering a stroke in his dressing room while working on the sitcom, Sports Night. He then made history by returning to the show and then went on to other films like, Big Fish in 2003, and Tough Like Wearing Dreadlocks in 2005, finally he did Jack Satin, in 2005.
Robert passed away on October 24, 2017 at the age of 89.
R.I.P Robert Guillaume 🪦
I hope you find this to be both informative and interesting 🤔🧐 and again let's remember those great people long forgotten.
