Guillaume

A Life

Robert Guillaume, David Ritz

• Publisher: University of Missouri
• Year: 2002
• Print ISBN: 9780826221612, 9780826214263
• eBook ISBN: 9780826263384
• Subtopic: Acting & Auditioning

Guillaume: A Life is the autobiography of esteemed Broadway, Hollywood, and television star Robert Guillaume. Ten months after suffering a stroke, Guillaume—perhaps best known as television's Benson—began this autobiography with award-winning author and collaborator David Ritz.

The book goes beyond the recounting of a long and successful career to examine the forces that shaped the man: family, religion, race, and class. Startlingly candid and disarmingly self-aware, Guillaume seeks to know and understand himself, his treatment of the women in his life, and the choices he made along the way. He pursues the truth, however painful it may be, says Ritz, guided by two questions, "Who the hell am I?" and "What made me do what I did?"

Born in St. Louis in 1927 to a young, abused, unstable mother, and reared by a strong, hardworking grandmother, Robert Guillaume managed to move from the poverty and adversity of his youth to a rich, full career as an actor and a singer. Fierce determination and sharp focus enabled this man born to hardship and racial discrimination to study, learn, cultivate his natural talents, and succeed at the performance career he pursued with a vengeance. Guillaume first performed in the strict Catholic schools and churches to which his grandmother, who understood that education would be the key to any success he might achieve, sent him. There his love of classical music was nurtured, and he was encouraged to perform.

From a child longing for his mother's love to a man unsure of the meaning of love for many of the women in his life, from a young performer struggling to succeed on Broadway and in Hollywood to a grief-stricken father watching his son die of AIDS, Robert Guillaume tells what it was like to realize celebrity and what he sacrificed in the process. Readers will savor the success story of this artist who achieved great recognition and fame, but who never lost sight of his beginnings. Appealing to all audiences, Guillaume is a revealing and poignant autobiography of an extraordinary and distinguished American thespian.

Index

Page references to photos appear in italics.

acting: Benno Frank’s directing, 61–63; by blacks, 147–50, 204; Bob looking for work in, 123, 179, 190, 195, 203; Bob’s, 72–73, 150–52, 159, 167–68; Bob’s hard work at, 161, 167; Bob’s style in, 74, 89–90; Faye’s career in, 162–64; Ron O’Neal’s, 137–38, 152; on TV, 199

activism: Donna’s, 173, 175; Karin’s, 69, 79; Robert’s lack of, 75, 79–81

Adler, Richard, 72–73

AIDS, 188–91, 193

alcoholism, 3–4, 41, 48

All in the Family (TV series), 145–46

ambition, 59; Bob pushing Faye professionally, 144, 163; Bob’s, 46, 59, 144; Bob’s and grandmother’s, 9–10; Bob’s desperation in, 81, 168; Bob’s in acting, 73, 168; Bob’s in singing, 45, 69–70; and careers of Bob and Ron O’Neal, 129–30; and hard work, 68, 167; Jacques’s, 170–71, 187–88

American Legionnaires, 16

Anderson, Carl, 193

Anderson, Marian, 23–24

Anna Adelaide, Sister, 21, 29

army, 27–29

Aspen Summer Music Festival, 52

As Time Goes By (CD), 194

auditions, 64, 68–70, 148–49

Aurthur, Robert Alan, 72–73

authority: resistance to, 27–29, 89, 151–52; at St. Nicholas’s Elementary, 12. See also rebellion

Bailey, Jim, 74

Baldwin, James, 129

Ballad for Americans (musical), 89

Banks, Carol Tillery, 136, 166, 178; on blacks playing servants, 147–48; on careers of Bob and Ron O’Neal, 129–30; on Jacques, 188, 189

Bean, Carl, 193

Belafonte, Harry, 77–78

Benson character: Bob’s fondness for, 179; development of, 161, 181; given own show, 153, 161; popularity of, 180–81; in Soap, 149–51, 159

Benson (TV series), 106; celebrity from, 166–67, 172, ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Two Women
• Bedrock of My Rebellion
• Morning Glories and Pigs’ Snouts
• “Boy, One of Us Has to Go . . .”
• Jeannette Williams (1880–1951)
• Karin Berg
• Karamu
• The City
• Acting as Though
• Golden Opportunities
• Pilgrims’ Progress
• “He Had Specters . . .”
• The Primary Issue
• Faye Hauser
• Stone Love
• Dinner for Four
• Pat Carpenter
• Brother, Sister, Mother
• Intellectual Armor
• Donna Brown Guillaume
• Be Careful What You Wish For
• “He Was Broken for Me”
• “This Is the Moment”
• Stroke of Fate
• Filmography and Discography
• Index