07/24/2007
TV Home / Entertainment Channel / Bullz-Eye Home
It's a safe bet that, when your eyes land upon the
visage of Robert Guillaume, the first thing you think
is, "Benson!" True, Guillaume's most long-running television
success came from his role as Benson DuBois. It began
when the character was introduced as the sarcastic
butler for the Tate family on "Soap," and continued
when Benson got his own self-titled series, finding
his way into the employ of Gov. Eugene Gatling as the
Governor's Head of Household Affairs. Once you get
to thinking about it, however, you begin to remember
how many other places you've seen Guillaume's face.
Or, in some cases, his voice. You realize, wow, this
guy's done a ton of great stuff! With the release of
"Benson: The Complete First Season" on DVD, Bullz-Eye
decided on a whim to contact Mr. Guillaume's management
and see if he'd be willing to chat with us about his
body of work, which includes everything from "The Lion
King" to "Superfly T.N.T.," plus a couple of TV movies
with Gary Coleman to boot. As you can probably imagine,
we were rather ecstatic when he graciously agreed;
we were also very pleased to discover that, despite
having suffered a stroke in 1999 while working on Aaron
Sorkin's "Sports Night," he sounds to be doing quite
well these days, as you'll soon read.
Robert Guillaume: How are you?
Bullz-Eye: I'm good. How are you, sir?
RG: Nice to talk to you.
BE: Absolutely. It's a pleasure. Well, I'm rather excited about "Benson" finally coming out on DVD.
RG: Well, so am I!
BE: (laughs) Now, the character, of course, originated on "Soap," where you were pretty much the only normal character.
RG: Yes.
BE: What did you think about "Soap" when it was first pitched to you?
RG: Well, I thought that it was something that I could do. I felt a vibe from the character, and I felt confident from the moment that I began to utter his words.
BE: Were you at all bothered by the occasionally controversial nature of the humor on the series?
RG: Oh, no, I didn't think about much of that at all. As a matter of fact, it didn't rear its head until well into the season. When we were first trying it out, we never expected that there would be…well, I didn't expect that there would be this kind of controversy over the contents of the show.
BE: You won your first Emmy for your role on the show. Can you still remember how it felt when they announced your name?
RG: Well, I don't know (considers it for a moment) I was certainly relieved! And I certainly felt honored that something that I had attempted was being rewarded by somebody in the business who was apparently listening or looking.
BE: When Benson was spun into his own series, it seemed like kind of an odd sidestep, since it was a more straightforward and traditional sitcom.
RG: Yes, that's true. When there was talk of a spin-off, and that Benson would be the guy who was spun off, of course, I approached that with a certain amount of, "Yeah, I'll believe that when it happens." (laughs) The people who first told me never wavered in their assessment that it would be successful. I, of course, had my reservoir of doubt, because, as an actor, I knew that it could all blow away tomorrow.
BE: I've read that Benson's last name was never actually revealed on "Soap." Do you remember who came up with the last name of DuBois?
RG: I think the producers.
BE: You know, I was only 10 when the show premiered, but I can still remember that I was just blown away by how great I thought your comic delivery was.
RG: Oh, thank you! (laughs)
BE: It was probably also my first real introduction to the concept of sarcasm.
BE: I mentioned how old I was when the show premiered, but, you know, I can also still remember what a crush I had on Missy Gold (who played the governor's daughter, Katie).
RG: Ah, yeah. You know she's a doctor now?
BE: I didn't know that.
RG: Yeah, she went on and got her medical degree.
BE: Do you still keep in touch with members of the cast?
RG: Not formally, and not on any regular basis. But we're all very friendly, as far as I know. They may be holding parties and things without me, I don't know. But we were all pretty friendly, and we get together on occasion. I talk to the governor (James Noble) often, and I talk to -- who else? Katherine Helmond (who played Jessica Tate on "Soap.")
BE: I know you recorded a new intro for the DVD set.
RG: Mm-hmm.
BE: Did they approach you to do that, or did you volunteer your services when you heard the set was forthcoming?
RG: No, they approached me.
BE: I remember the change-up in the cast when Taylor left and Clayton Endicott III came in. Was that a choice of the network to do some possibly-unnecessary retooling, or did Lewis J. Stadlen just decide to leave the show?
RG: I think he decided to leave the show. I think that some of them felt that this was kind of a dead end for them, and they didn't see the possibilities, they didn't see the longevity of the piece. And a lot of them felt that they could do better.
BE: You won your Emmy for "Benson" pretty late into the series' run. Were you pretty surprised at that point to receive it? Because you had been nominated several times before that.
RG: Yeah, I had. I was surprised, yes.
BE: After "Benson," you had your own show ("The Robert Guillaume Show"), but, honestly, I don't know how many episodes it lasted. All I really know about it is that it was a syndicated show, and it was only on for about a year.
RG: Well, it didn't last long. I don't think we even got to show the 13 episodes that we did.
BE: Now, when you left "Soap," your replacement was Roscoe Lee Browne.
RG: Right!
BE: And you'd worked with him before on "Superfly T.N.T." Had you known each other prior to that movie?
RG: Not prior to the movie, I don't think. But he was one of the great talents of our time.
BE: Yes, I was extremely sorry to hear the news when he passed away.
"People say, 'You were the only sane one on the show,' but I don't know that that's true. I don't think that Benson was sane; I think he was as much of an anomaly as the rest of the characters. That's where the humor came from: because he was against type." RG: Yes. I went to a memorial down at the Mark Taper Forum (at the Los Angeles Music Center) – that's where his memorial was held – and Sidney was there…Sidney Poitier was there, and Laurence Fishburne. People of that caliber. They had about a half-hour or 45 minutes of clips of things that he'd done throughout his career, and you realized at that moment how much you're going to miss that talent. Many people were not aware of the scope of his talent. He was one of the great actors of our time.
BE: We have a web-blog in conjunction with our regular site, and I did a posting when he passed away, and I listed some of his credits and said, "This is a man who you may not realize you know, but when you see some of the stuff that he's done, you'll know him immediately." And once you do, well, like you said, that's when you really begin to miss him.
RG: Yeah. For a very long time, he had done a poetry show. He and Anthony Zerbe traveled around the country and put on … I think it was about an hour of poetry.
BE: He had a great voice.
RG: Yes, he did.
BE: I actually had another question about "Superfly T.N.T." It's a film that kind of gets lumped into the whole "blaxploitation" genre, but it seems that any movie with a screenplay by Alex Haley would, I'd think, step aside from the norm.
RG: Yeah, well, it was an attempt to tell an honest story about an individual who wanted to change his life, who wanted to change how the world saw him and how he saw the world. And I think it was an admirable attempt, but I think certain things in it may not have been as strong as they should've been. I for one! (laughs)
BE: That was your very first film, correct?
RG: Yes, I think it was.
BE: But, now, prior to that, you had quite a history in the theater, and I didn't really realize how much until I started doing my research to prepare for our conversation today.
RG: Yeah, well, I had been on Broadway for 17 years before I ever showed up on television. I was working in New York, and I had come through Karamu, out in Cleveland…Karamu House being a community center which had a theater…and we'd done a lot of things out there. And then I went from there to New York, and that's how I really got my tentacles into show business. (laughs)
BE: And then you won a Tony for "Purlie Victorious?"
RG: Well, no, I had been nominated for a Tony, for the part of Nathan Detroit in "Guys and Dolls."
BE: But you were in "Purlie Victorious"?
RG: No, not "Purlie Victorious." Just "Purlie!" The musical.
BE: Oh, OK. Somebody's got your Wikipedia entry wrong. I'll have to go in and correct that.
RG: Yeah. No, I wasn't in "Purlie Victorious." That was a few years earlier than when I did my work in "Purlie!," the musical.
(Writer's note: Hey, kids, here's a tip for you
budding journalists: never, ever, ever use
Wikipedia as your sole source of information. To clarify
at least part of this confusion, though, "Purlie Victorious"
was a play written by Ossie Davis, and it was turned
into a musical, which was simply entitled "Purlie!"
Guillaume appeared not only in the Broadway staging
of "Purlie!" – which did win Tony Awards for
its lead actor, Cleavon Little, and lead actress, Melba
Moore – but also in a version of the show which was
done for television in 1981.)
BE: I also wanted to mention that I'm a big fan of your work on "Sports Night."
RG: Well, thank you!
BE: Are you yourself a sports fan, or was it the Aaron Sorkin dialogue that sold you on the show?
RG: It was Aaron who sold me on the show. I consider it sort of the high point of things that I thought I'd been struggling for over the years: to get a legitimate part as an actor and have the feeling that I was doing something totally worthwhile.
BE: I've got the complete series on DVD, in fact, I'm loaning it out to our Editor in Chief, because he's never seen it, but he's a big fan of Aaron Sorkin's work.
RG: Yeah, I think he's one of the most talented playwrights we have.
BE: Now, you had your stroke when you were on the show, and I've recently read that, well, now I can't trust your Wikipedia entry, so I'll just ask you: did you indeed have your stroke while you were on the set?
RG: No, I had the stroke on a day that we were just working on some scenes, so I never actually got onto the set that day. It was Jan. 14, 1999, and I had a stroke beginning that morning. I was to be in to work at about 10 a.m., and when I got to work, I found myself almost totally disabled, and I couldn't do it. So they took me over to St. Joseph's Hospital, which was nearby, and they put me in the hospital. Thank God I was still lucid enough to be embarrassed!
BE: The way they wrote the stroke into the script was extremely well done, but your return episode was particularly poignant. Were you at all intimidated by the thought of going back, or was it the thought of your return that was keeping you going?
RG: I was not intimidated, not so much as I was apprehensive about how I could do it and remain credible. My wife, Donna, saw to the possibility that they could incorporate the stroke, or at least the news of the stroke, into the series. That way, whatever effect I would suffer from the stroke would be easily explained in my performance, to the extent that I could stand and talk, and that sort of thing. So it was all made possible by her suggestion that we write it into the script.
BE: I've got a 23-month-old daughter, and I think that one day very soon, she's going to be very impressed that I talked to the man who voiced Rafiki, in "The Lion King."
RG: Oh, yeah! (laughs)
BE: Was that a fun gig for you?
RG: It was, it was. In many ways. I found it totally liberating as an assignment, after suffering from an initial idea of rejecting the idea of playing a baboon. I finally made my piece with my vanity, and I found that character something that I liked to do.
BE: And I'm sure you've got kids and grandkids who like the idea that you were in a Disney movie as well.
RG: Yeah, yeah. (chuckles) Although I don't think they're sufficiently aware of it.
BE: You know, from when I was a kid, I have some fond memories of those TV movies you did with Gary Coleman.
RG: Oh, yeah. At that time, I think I had come off the success in "Benson" as a character actor, and they had asked me to do a series of little movies like that. Well, they weren't necessary little; they just weren't highly touted.
BE: (laughs) I really remember the one where he played an angel ("The Kid with the Broken Halo"), but until my research, I'd forgotten about the one where he played a kid with a high IQ ("The Kid with the High IQ").
RG: Yeah, I don't remember those too well, but I know I enjoyed them. I enjoyed working with Gary, who was a bit of a little devil.
BE: Speaking of the '80s, you hosted "Saturday Night Live" once …
RG: (Voice drops to an almost-inaudible level) Oh, God.
BE: …and it was a definitively '80s episode, because Duran Duran was the musical guest.
RG: Yeah, I, uh, sometimes, I look back at that, and…and I shudder.
BE: That good an episode, huh?
RG: (laughs) I, uh, I could take credit for a dip in the show's fortunes.
BE: Eddie Murphy was in the cast at the time, right?
RG: Yes, he and I, we played together on "Saturday Night Live." I've since looked back on it, and, of course, I tend in retrospect to give myself more credit than I probably deserve…but I remember thinking when I saw it, "Well, it's to be expected." I didn't know how to play sketch comedy. I tended to treat any assignment as if it were straight theater, or a play of some sort, in which I was playing a character. But I wish from time to time that I could've known or appreciated more things about sketch comedy, because I was totally unaware.
BE: Since "Sports Night" wrapped up, you've, well, I won't say you've necessarily kept a low profile, per se, since you've done an episode of "8 Simple Rules," and you had some great moments in Tim Burton's "Big Fish." But are you just sort of taking it easy these days, or are you still accepting offers?
RG: Well, when something comes my way that I think I can do without requiring too much mobility, I take it on. And, otherwise, I'm having an enjoyable time sitting on my butt. (laughs)
BE: OK, well, I appreciate you taking a few minutes to speak with me. It's been a pleasure.
RG: OK, and…I'm sorry, what was your first name again?
BE: It's Will.
RG: OK, Will, thank you very much. It's been nice talking to you.