Clancy Brown

Clancy Brown
Clancy Brown, 2008
Born	Clarence J. Brown III January 5, 1959 (1959-01-05) (age 50) Urbana, Ohio, U.S.
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1983–present
Spouse(s)	Jeanne Johnson (1993-present)
Official website

Clarence J. "Clancy" Brown III (born January 5, 1959) is an American actor and voice actor known for his roles as Byron Hadley in the award winning The Shawshank Redemption and Career Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers. He is perhaps best known for his role as the Kurgan in the cult classic Highlander. Brown also works extensively as a voice actor in animated TV series, notably portraying Lex Luthor on Superman: The Animated Series and Justice League/Justice League Unlimited as well as Mr. Krabs on Spongebob Squarepants.

Early life

Brown was born in Urbana, Ohio. His mother, Joyce, was a conductor, composer, and concert pianist, while his father, Clarence J. "Bud" Brown Jr., was an Ohio Congressman and chairman of the board of the Brown Publishing Company, the family-owned newspaper business started by his grandfather, Congressman Clarence J. Brown.^[1] He graduated from St. Albans School in Washington, D.C., and earned a scholarship to Northwestern University, where he became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. He was inspired to become an actor by a neighbor who showed him Shakespeare's works.

Career

Brown, who is 6'3" (192 cm), possesses a deep voice and large frame, and is often typecast in roles of villains. His career has tended to alternate between mainstream TV/cable; major-studio and independent-studio movies; and a large repertoire of voicework for animated and video game roles.

Movie roles

Well-known roles include Captain Byron Hadley in The Shawshank Redemption, Viking Lofgren in the 1983 hit drama movie Bad Boys, Rawhide in The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension (1984), Dead Man Walking (cameo only), Pet Sematary Two as Gus, Career Sergeant Zim in Starship Troopers, (a role he would reprise in the animated television series Roughnecks: Starship Troopers Chronicles), and Captain William Hadley in The Guardian ,But it was his role as the Kurgan in Highlander that made him well known and is aurguably one of his best roles to date. Has three times played senior prison officers in movies dealing with miscarriages of justice: in The Shawshank Redemption, the tyrannical Capt. Hadley; in The Hurricane, the sympathetic Lt. Williams; and in Last Light as Lt. McMannis. He starred in several independent films in 2008: The Burrowers, screened at the Toronto Film Festival in 2008, and released in the US on DVD in April 2009, and The Twenty, which is currently awaiting screening.

Television roles

Brown was notable as the sinister preacher Brother Justin Crowe in the HBO series Carnivàle. He also starred in the Showtime production In the Company of Spies. He has also made many guest appearances on various television shows including Star Trek: Enterprise as Zobral in the episode "Desert Crossing", ER, Lost as Kelvin Inman, John Danziger on Earth 2, and former baseball player (and investment scam mark) Rudy Blue on The Riches.

Notable voice roles

He has voiced the corrupt Baron Praxis in the PlayStation 2 video game Jak II, Doctor Neo Cortex and Uka Uka in a number of the Crash Bandicoot video games until Crash Twinsanity (in which he was replaced by Lex Lang and Alex Fernandez/John DiMaggio), Montross in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter and Gorrath in the animated series Megas XLR. Brown was also the voice of Thrall in the cancelled video game Warcraft Adventures: Lord of the Clans. He also played Hakon, Tomas Brod, and Wolf in the TV series Gargoyles. In 1994 he voiced the fictional tanuki, Gonta, in the English language dub of "Pom Poko". Brown voice-played Raiden on the animated series, Mortal Kombat: Defenders of the Realm. Brown also played the conniving Alderman Richard Hughes in the Xbox 360 game, Saints Row.

From 1999 to the present, he has played the role of Mr. Krabs of Spongebob Squarepants.Beginning in 2000, he regularly played the roles of Captain Black and Ratso on Jackie Chan Adventures and occasionally took on the role of the talisman-animated moose doll known as Super Moose. He has also voice-played Vice-Principal Pangborn in All Grown Up and Barkmeat in Catscratch. In Disney programs, he's played roles such as Otto in Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go!, Alexander Paine in A.T.O.M., and the Dark Dragon in American Dragon: Jake Long, as well as the Ugly Bald Guy in the movie Recess: School's Out. Brown also plays Long Feng in Avatar: The Last Airbender. He could be seen in the 2006 Cartoon Network movie Re-Animated, as Mr. Norm, the science teacher. He also voice-played Undertow, Cloak and Dagger in The Little Mermaid II: Return to the Sea and a guest appearance in the Kim Possible episode Oh, No! Yono where he played the titular character.

DC universe roles

Clancy Brown is best known for his voice work as villains from various DC animated shows, movies, and video games. Clancy Brown played Mr. Freeze in The Batman, as well a few appearances as the voice of Trident on Teen Titans. He also played Big man in Batman Beyond, in the DC universe, Clancy brown's best known role in the DC universe, is that of the villlianous Lex Luthor, a role that he lead for over 12 years. He first appeared as Lex vocally in Bruce Timms Superman: The Animated Series, he had originally auditioned for the role of Superman, but the part ultimately went to actor Tim Daly. He has reprised his role as Lex Luthor in various other animated shows: Justice League, Justice League Unlimited and The Batman. He has reprised his role of Lex in the video game Superman: Shadow of Apokolips. Clancy Brown was absent from the movie Superman: Brainiac Attacks so the role of Lex was played by Clancy's Justice League Unlimited co-star Powers Booth. Clancy Brown has reprised his role as Lex Luthor in Superman/Batman: Public Enemies. [ref>Interview from Voices From Krypton]. Adding up all these vocal appearances Clancy has made as Lex Luthor, Clancy Brown has played Lex longer than any other actor in history who has played Lex, even Gene Hackman who played Luthor in the first Superman film saga and his Justice League co-star Michael Rosenbaum who played Lex in Smallville.

Marvel Roles

He plays the police captain George Stacy in The Spectacular Spider-Man, along with the supervillain The Rhino. Recently he voice-played the villain Mr. Sinister in Wolverine and the X-Men.

He voice-plays 5 of the 6 members of Legion Ex Machina in the animated series Big Guy and Rusty the Boy Robot. He is the voice of the unnamed Sargent in Phineas and Ferb in an episode called "Phineas and Ferb gets busted" and The Regurgitator in the episode "Oh, There you are, Perry".

He will be the voice of The Goon in the upcoming animated feature film.^[2]

Commercial spokesman

He is the commercial spokesman for Home Depot, Gerbers and Avis Rent a Car System, as well as Honda.

Personal life

Brown is married to Jeanne Johnson; they have two children. They have been married since 1993.

References

Further reading

• Voisin, Scott, Character Kings: Hollywood's Familiar Faces Discuss the Art and Business of Acting BearManor Media, 2009. ISBN 978-1-593-93342-5

External links

• Clancy Brown's official website
• Clancy Brown at the Internet Movie Database
• Clancy Brown at Allmovie
• Clancy Brown at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)