Episode 295 - Mini Episode: The Passing of Andre Braugher

A mini episode where Brad talks about his fandom of Andre Braugher

Episode Transcript

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From Geppetto Studios in New Freedom,Pennsylvania. Welcome to the Cosmic Geppetto podcast,
your home for inclusive, positive geekculture where we talk about movies,
comics, music, books, andwhatever else we feel like. Please welcome
your host. This episode was recordedat seven am, so there's a chancey

(00:45):
sober. Brad Mendenhall, Hey kids, It is episode two ninety five the
Cosmic Chapeto Podcast. It is amini episode And I wasn't planning on this

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one. I have like a listof things that I would like to talk
about or do sort of many episodes, and basically it's got to be something
that I feel I can talk aboutwhile driving home after driving my kid off

(01:33):
at school. And this wasn't whatI was expecting to do. But today,
this morning, I saw the newsthat Emmy winning actor Andre Brower passed
away. He was sixty one yearsold, left behind a wife and three

(01:59):
children. And Brower is an excellent, excellent actor who starred in several shows.
The shows he starred in didn't Idon't think any of them really caught

(02:21):
on the ones where he was thestar. I think his breakthrough role a
couple of arguments to be made forwhat his breakthrough role was. He did
an excellent job in the movie Glory, and Glory had Matthew Broderick and Denzel
Washington were the name actors, Andto be unfamiliar, Glory was a movie

(02:46):
Civil War drama about a all blackUnion battalion. It was a it was
a good movie. It got someOscar consideration. I think got some Oscar

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wins. It was a young DenzelWashington who was an amazing perform unity,
just young Denzel Washington. Matthew Broderickwas horribly miscast as the leader of the
battalion because it's Matthew Broderick. Andwe all liked Matthew Broderick. He was
Ferris Bueller and he's done some goodwork in other other movies and TV and

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Broadway, but he's not exactly thefirst person you think of as a Civil
War battalion leader. And perhaps that'swhat they were going for, where they
didn't want Tom Berenger, Chris Christoffersand I'm thinking of guys who, especially

(03:58):
around that era, would have ofan instant era of leadership John Wayne,
and they wanted somebody who was andhe was portrayed as somebody who was a
bit cowardly early in the movie butthen became became the leader that he needed

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to be. That was Matthew brodderAndre Brower was was an educated, free
black man who had an existing friendshipwith Matthew Broderick's character who joined the battalion.

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And he wasn't a natural fighter orhe wasn't a tough guy. He
was an educated man and you sortof saw him become a good soldier by
the end of it. And hewas so compelling and so different than what
we saw him later because he thenthen receives a lot of notice and Emmy

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and an Emmy win for playing thecharacter Frank. And Homicide Life in the
Street and Homicide Life in the Streetan amazing show that I think is a
little bit forgotten. It came outaround the same time as Law and Order,
and it's easy to forget because nowwe think of Law and Order as

(05:30):
SVU and that show that's on,this show that is on like deep cable
channels all the time when the cablestations don't have anything else to show.
But the original Law and Order wasa very very good show and was sort
of a mold breaker because it wasn'ta romanticized view of police work and the

(06:00):
legal process. So but anyway,Andre Brower was the breakout character from Homicide
and Homicide again a non romanticized takeon police work in Baltimore in the eighties.
It was produced and written by andby people who had worked as as

(06:30):
police in Baltimore, So it wasa very accurate portrayal of what the professional
and personal lines of police were.Andre Brower as Frank, he was the
loud, boisterous, sort of difficultcharacter from that show. And he was

(06:51):
a brilliant detective and you know heand he was very good in the interview
room. He was the person thatyou put in the room with the suspect
and he would break them down andhe would get the confession and he would
get to the truth. But hewas not a he wasn't an action star.

(07:16):
He wasn't a He was presented it'snot a particularly good shot where they
showed him in at the gun rangeand he passed the gun exam, but
just passed. He wasn't, youknow, shooting the bullet through the heart

(07:40):
of the target five times in arow. He was just barely doing good
enough. And he said afterwards,as like the real test is in there,
pointing to the interview room, becausehe understood that's what being a policeman
was about. He was so goodand so charismatic, and he took a
character who was by all accounts ajerk and made you root for him,

(08:05):
made you believe in him, andhe was amazingly charismatic. So I always
found him a fascinating actor. Truestory, I actually saw him in the
eighties. I think it's before Glory. It was definitely before homicide. I

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saw him on stage because it wasa school trip to a theater in Philadelphia
to see a matinee of Macbeth,and he played the main character. He

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played McBeth, and we didn't knowwho he was. Even if he had
been in some movies, it wasn'tlike he was in stuff that would uh
be wildly popular with suburban middle schoolkids or early high school. I gotta

(09:15):
find out when these days I'll findout how exactly how old I was when
I saw it. And on stagehe popped. He was a wild man.
He had so much presence, andevery line that came out of his
mouth, uh felt so unfiltered andso just exposed. Just an amazing performance

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and and none of us knew.But none of us knew that it was
like, Oh, that's the guywho's gonna be in you know, TV
and movies. He he wasn't hehe didn't. He wasn't a leading man.

(10:07):
I think they he he wasn't theeasiest person in the cast and stuff
because he wasn't like romantic leading manlooks. His intensity didn't really make for
him being, you know, thecharming boyfriend. So he played a lot
of stern characters off the lot ofmilitary characters. He he is tangentially related

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to the MCU because he played acharacter in Fantastic four Rise of the Silver
Surfer. He was like a generalwho was trying to figure out what's going
on with the Silver Surfer. Andit was perfect and it was a bad
movie, but he brought some gusto. He was also in and I wish
I could remember the name of it, a movie with Meg Ryan and Nick

(11:03):
Cage where Nick Cage played an angelwho fell in love with Meg Ryan and
was trying to decide whether he wasgonna stop being an angel. Andre Brower
played his fellow angel. And itwas a little different because there was a
sweetness to Brower in that movie.Also speaking of great cop at actors playing

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cops in the eighties and nineties,that movie also featured one of my all
time favorites, Dennis Franz, asa man who used to be an angel
and he decided he wanted to bea person and he was no longer an
angel. And Dennis Franz is amazing. Denis Fron's best known for his work

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as Zipowitz in NYPD Blue. Soyou had these two great grouchy, sort
of anti hero cop character cop actorsin a movie together. They didn't share
a scene, but it was justcool that there's a movie where Frank and
Sipowitzer in a movie together. Browerwas in a couple of TV shows that

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there was one where he was asubmarine captain who was sort of who was
on the run from the US military. It was fine and he was great
in it, but then had somegreat late career success as Holt in Brooklyn

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ninety nine, And it was justperfect use of Andre Brower because he was
the stern captain but he was alsoa caring, loving person who always hoarded
and it was always there for hishis officers. Uh. He also had

(13:07):
a very rich personal life, andit was revealed in the first episode that
he was gay and a pretty groundbreakingportrayal of a gay man in a sitcom
where he had a loving marriage.He he and his husband were supportive of
each other, though they still hadissues. You know, they would bicker

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and fight like a normal couple.And it was such great use of Browers
charisma, intensity, but also hishis ability to be stoic and part of
the deep stoic and just barely seethinguh motions under his wall like facade.

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And he was one of the bestparts of a very good show. And
it was great to see somebody whohad been so great for so long but
wasn't easy to cast and stuff andsee that person, you know, excel
and he got more Emmy nominations forthat role. It was. It was

(14:31):
pretty fantastic. And he is nolonger with us, and it's heartbreaking,
and sixty one feels so young.And there were so many great so many
great roles, and so much greatwork he still had to do. So

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it's just something NFLT that I neededto talk about this amazing career that I've
watched in an actor. I followedfor literary decades before I evenknew who he
was. So on that sad note, I hope everybody. I recommend everyone
check out Brooklyn nine nine, checkout episodes of Homicide, Life on the

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Street. I'm not gonna say watchthe second Fantastic Four because it was bad,
but that's something you should do.And until next time, as Jarff
likes to say, seeing the funnypages, Subscribe to the Cosmic Chrippano podcast

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Beware of the beast Man, forhe is the Devil's PAWM is not

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and is not an thin extins nestsand steps, thins the things stinking puling

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steps, bud steps, nest andbuildings and sticks and cont