Hey folks. Quint here with a tribute for actor Brock Peters who died yesterday. Outside of his most famous role (that of Tom Robinson, the black man on trial in the classic adaptation TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD) I know very little of his career. I've seen him in his STAR TREK appearances, but I've never been a big Trekkie, so I never connected him to that amazing performance he did in 1962. Thankfully we have a reader who knows a little more about Peters than I do who wrote a lovely tribute to the man, focusing on a piece of his work that most might not be familiar with. My thoughts are with his family, friends and fans.
I found out yesterday that an actor by the name of Brock Peters has died of cancer. And I find that I am a lot more moved than I thought I would be. It is a sad day for me.
There is a pretty good chance that you are reading this thinking to yourself, "Who was Brock Peters???" Well, for starters, he was an AWESOME actor.
His obituaries are -- rightly -- saying that his most famous role was playing Tom Robinson, the black man accused of raping a white woman, in the classic film adaptation of "To Kill A Mockingbird". And, glancing at his IMDB entry, it appears that he also had roles in a few other well known movies such as "Soylent Green" and a 1981 TV movie version of "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" playing Jim. (I'm going to have to search that one out to watch it.)
Besides the incredibly powerful, nuanced performance he gave in "To Kill A Mockingbird" -- one of my favorite movies -- I knew him mainly from his science fiction roles. He brought some real gravitas to the small role of Admiral Cartwright in two of the 'Star Trek' movies, and he also played a recurring role as Commander Sisko's dad on 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine'. He was always fun to watch.
But of all his performances, I'll always think of him as the voice of Darth Vader -- believe it or not -- from the little-known 'Star Wars' Radio Series that I used to listen to all the time when I was a kid!
I had some cheapo audio cassettes of the "Star Wars" and "Empire Strikes Back" radio series that I recorded off of the radio in 1980 and 1983. I damn near wore those tapes out, listening to them over and over again in the "dark" pre-VHS years of roughly 1980-1985. Before I could just pop a tape of the 'Star Wars' trilogy into a VCR... and long, long before I could pop a DVD into my DVD player... if I wanted to get a Star Wars "fix", the only way to do it was to listen to those radio episodes.
In case you've never heard of them, the "Star Wars" radio series was produced in 1980 and "The Empire Strikes Back" was produced in 1983. George Lucas, as a fundraiser, gave National Public Radio (NPR) the rights to the movies for $1 each. Expanded, longer versions of the movies were written, and the original sound effects and music were added to the voice-acting of mostly new actors (along with Mark Hamill and Anthony Daniels reprising their roles as Luke and C-3PO)... and Brock Peters performed the voice of Darth Vader. The stories of the movies were serialized into half-hour episodes with cliff-hanger endings that emulated the golden years of radio... the serials of the 20's and 30's which, ironically, the movies were primarily inspired by in the first place.
I don't have to listen to my worn out audio cassettes of those radio series any longer, because I own both sets on CD, now. And despite the uneven quality of the writing and some of the OTHER voice actors in the series, I will always have a special place in my heart for those radio series.
Brock Peters, almost as much as James Earl Jones, was and forever will be the voice of Darth Vader to me.
I hope he rests in peace.
Scott
