Thursday, August 25, 2005
Rest in Peace, Brock Peters
I was saddened to learn that Brock Peters died on Tuesday of pancreatic cancer.
The first exposure to Brock Peters was listening to him play Darth Vader on the Star Wars Radio Dramas on NPR. This of course was the early Eighties, a time when most people didn't have VCRs, and movies took years to come to video. If you wanted to watch a movie again, you had to drag your parents to the theater only if it was in re-release. So, for a die-hard Star Wars fan, we had the radio. My grandfather taped the shows for me, and I spent countless hours listening over and over again.
For me, Brock Peters was more Darth Vader than James Earl Jones ever was. There were subtleties to his performance which George Lucas could never achieve, even if he had the 6+ hours that the radio show had to do it. Vader's describing the Death Star as he and Princess Leia approach is almost seductive; he is drunk with the power before him. In that same episode, the torture of Leia was more horrific than anything we ever saw on film.
Years later, we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 9th grade English. Afterwards, we rented the movie. While I had known Brock Peters all of my life, I had never actually seen him. At the time, I never made the connection. I had missed the opening credits, so I never saw his name. There were three performances that really stood out to me, however. Gregory Peck as Atticus, Mary Badham as Scout, and Brock Peters as Tom.
It wasn't until a couple of years later that I finally saw Brock Peters. In Star Trek VI, he played Admiral Cartwright. Suddenly, it all came to me. The connection was made, and I've looked for him ever since. I've gone back to the old classics like To Kill a Mockingbird (I never realized that Robert Duvall was in it!) or Carmen Jones.
Rest in peace, Mr. Peters. Thanks for all the joy you've given us. We'll miss you.
The first exposure to Brock Peters was listening to him play Darth Vader on the Star Wars Radio Dramas on NPR. This of course was the early Eighties, a time when most people didn't have VCRs, and movies took years to come to video. If you wanted to watch a movie again, you had to drag your parents to the theater only if it was in re-release. So, for a die-hard Star Wars fan, we had the radio. My grandfather taped the shows for me, and I spent countless hours listening over and over again.
For me, Brock Peters was more Darth Vader than James Earl Jones ever was. There were subtleties to his performance which George Lucas could never achieve, even if he had the 6+ hours that the radio show had to do it. Vader's describing the Death Star as he and Princess Leia approach is almost seductive; he is drunk with the power before him. In that same episode, the torture of Leia was more horrific than anything we ever saw on film.
Years later, we read "To Kill a Mockingbird" in 9th grade English. Afterwards, we rented the movie. While I had known Brock Peters all of my life, I had never actually seen him. At the time, I never made the connection. I had missed the opening credits, so I never saw his name. There were three performances that really stood out to me, however. Gregory Peck as Atticus, Mary Badham as Scout, and Brock Peters as Tom.
It wasn't until a couple of years later that I finally saw Brock Peters. In Star Trek VI, he played Admiral Cartwright. Suddenly, it all came to me. The connection was made, and I've looked for him ever since. I've gone back to the old classics like To Kill a Mockingbird (I never realized that Robert Duvall was in it!) or Carmen Jones.
Rest in peace, Mr. Peters. Thanks for all the joy you've given us. We'll miss you.
