Brother Theodore

Brother Theodore (born 11 November 1906 in Düsseldorf, Germany; died 5 April 2001 in New York City) was a monologuist and comedian known for rambling, stream of consciousness dialogues which he called "stand up tragedy". He was born Theodore Gottleib into a wealthy family in Germany, where his father was a magazine publisher. Theodore attended the University of Cologne. Under Nazi rule, he was imprisoned at Dachau until he signed over his family's fortune for one Reichsmark. After being deported for chess hustling from Switzerland he went to Austria where Albert Einstein, a family friend, helped him escape to the United States. He worked as a janitor at Stanford University, a dockworker in San Francisco and played a bit part in Orson Welles' The Stranger before moving to New York City.

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11 November - 1906 - Düsseldorf - Germany - 5 April - 2001 - New York City - Monologuist - University of Cologne - Nazi - Dachau - Reichsmark - Chess - Switzerland - Austria - Albert Einstein - Stanford University - San Francisco - Orson Welles - The Stranger

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Brother Theodore made a number of movie appearances beginning in the 1940s and continuing into the 1990s. These roles were mostly small parts in B-movies, although he did provide the voice of Gollum in the 1977 made-for-television animated version of The Hobbit and the follow-up adaptation of Return of the King. Talk-show viewers probably remember Theodore for his 16 appearances on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman in the 80's, and prior to that his appearances on The Merv Griffin Show and The Joey Bishop Show in the 60's and 70's. In the early 1980s, he was a regular on the Billy Crystal Show. Up until the late 1990s, he was a guest actor in several episodes of Joe Frank's radio show. Just prior to his death from pneumonia, he taped several monologues for the controversial documentary series, Disinformation.

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1990s - B-movies - Gollum - 1977 - The Hobbit - Return of the King - Late Night with David Letterman - The Merv Griffin Show - The Joey Bishop Show - 1980s - Billy Crystal Show - Joe Frank's - Pneumonia - Disinformation

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