Brother Theodore (11 November 1906 - 5 April 2001) was a German monologuist and comedian known for rambling, stream of consciousness dialogues which he called "stand up tragedy." He was born Theodore Gottlieb into a wealthy family in Düsseldorf, Germany, where his father was a magazine publisher. Theodore attended the University of Cologne. Under Nazi rule, he was imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp 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.
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 The Return of the King. Talk-show viewers probably remember Theodore for his 16 appearances on NBC's Late Night with David Letterman in the '80s and, prior to that, his appearances on The Merv Griffin Show and The Joey Bishop Show in the '60s and '70s. 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: Work in Progress radio show on NPR. An excellent article on Theodore appeared in RAVE magazine (with color photos) and segments from it are in the book Who's Who in Comedy. Just prior to his death from pneumonia, he taped several monologues for the controversial documentary series, Disinformation. Brother Theodore died in New York City in 2001.
A documentary of Brother Theodore's life is being produced and directed by South Carolinan Jeff Sumerel and is currently in post-production, scheduled for release in 2007. Recent photo of Theodore by Ronald L. Smith.
Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy", by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 66-67. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
He and Peter Woodthorpe have both played Gollum twice. Theodore played the role in Hobbit, The (1977) (TV), while Woodthorpe played him in Lord of the Rings, The (1978). This incomplete adaptation sparked two other adaptations: the animated Return of the King, The (1980) (TV), in which Theodore reprised the role; and the BBC radio production, in which Woodthorpe reprised the role. Theodore played the role opposite Orson Bean, who played Frodo, but had previously played Bilbo in The Hobbit. Woodthorpe played the role opposite Ian Holm (I), who played Frodo, and would go on to play Bilbo in Peter Jackson (I)'s films.
