Robert Brown, who appeared in dozens of TV shows throughout the years, has died. Among Brown’s many television roles, his most famous was perhaps that of Jason Bolt in the long-running ABC series Here Come the Brides, which took place in a post-Civil War America. The actor, whose career spanned the 1940s through the mid-1990s, died at the age of 95.
On September 19 this year, Brown passed away in Ojai, California.
Kiki Bremont, a close friend, confirmed his death to the press, albeit the circumstances of his passing were never clarified. When his career began to wane in the late 1970s, Brown did something unusual for a Hollywood actor his age: he disappeared from public view. Brown shone as the charming manager of a logging firm in the western comedy Here Come the Brides, in which the male workers threatened to quit and move elsewhere because of a lack of women to care for their emotional needs.
Brown, desperate to keep his business viable, uses the promise of bringing in 100 bachelorettes from other locations to keep his staff around. The series made an effort to address important themes including racism, commercial ethics, and the treatment of persons with disabilities via its comedic and tragic plotlines. Based on actual events, Here Come the Brides tells the story of Washington senator Asa Mercer’s attempt to boost Seattle’s culture by importing young women from the war-torn eastern nations who had lost most of their men in the war, known as the Mercer Girls initiative. Many of the ladies found teaching jobs in Seattle after moving there.
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, a musical from 1954, served as inspiration for both that show and the western it spawned, which included no gunslingers. ABC TV decided to telecast 52 episodes of the show over the course of two seasons because of its popularity. Additionally, it launched the careers of actors Bobby Sherman and David Soul, who played Brown’s character’s younger siblings. On November 17th, 1926, Robin Adair MacKenzie Brown was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey. He spent his childhood in Trenton and the Bronx. He served in the US Navy for a while before attending the Dramatic Workshop, where he learned acting techniques from the likes of Lee Strasberg, Rod Steiger, Harry Belafonte, and Walter Matthau.
Beginning in the late 1940s, he began his acting career in Broadway shows. Next, he relocated to the City of Angels and started looking for acting parts. His early credits include The Flame Barrier (1958), Tower of London (1962), and The Lawless Years. After Lazarus actor John Drew Barrymore missed a filming date in 1967, the role went to the legendary Brown. After a string of supporting parts on TV, he starred in Here Come the Brides.
Despite the fact that Leonard Freeman, the show’s producer, changed his mind at the last minute and cast Jack Lord as the lead in the original Hawaii Five-O, Brown dominated television in the 1960s and 1970s with roles in shows like Bewitched, Primus, Fantasy Island, Archie Bunker’s Place, and In the Heat of the Night. Robert Brown was multitalented, having also dabbled in writing and photography. Now and then you may hear his voice on the radio or TV.