ROBB BROWN
PROFILE
Robb Brown was born in 1957 in Bristol, Pennsylvania, the middle child of three. I grew up in Levittown, PA and moved to Yardley, PA when I was 8. Baseball was always big in my house as my Dad was the Little League Commissioner. We HAD to play! I was a decent player but it was my younger brother Todd, a left-handed pitcher that was the superstar. In one 6 inning Little League game, he struck out all 18 batters. Later he was scouted by both the Pirates and the Dodgers but burnt out on baseball and walked away when he was 18.
After college at Yale and graduate school at the Yale School of Drama, I moved to New York City in the fall of 1982 to start my acting career. I got lucky pretty quickly and booked both a Broadway show, “Plenty” and a feature film, “Trading Places”, playing Todd, in my first few weeks in New York. Commercials, regional theatre gigs, Shakespeare in the Park and a long run on the soap opera “Search For Tomorrow”, filled my time in New York.
In the Spring of 1983, I discovered the Broadway Show Softball League and went to try out for a team. When I got there there were about 30 guys, most of whom had played on the Actor’s Equity team. I realized it would be tough to win a spot. But I was told there was a new team forming for a show that had just opened. I played a game when they were short players, turned in a good game and earned a spot on the roster. I played for “Cats” for 6 years. I lived in New York City until 1990 when I finally moved permanently to Los Angeles.
Through a bizarre series of circumstances, I replaced an actor who was being fired from a show at the Taper Too Theatre. I had three days of rehearsal, opened the show, “The Thrill”, to rave reviews and married the woman I was playing opposite. Diane and I were married in September of 1991. We have 2 kids, Eli (b. 1995) and Emma (b. 1999). Eli is graduating from The Royal Academy of Music in London in Orchestral Conducting and Emma is living in Brooklyn and is a junior at The New School in Manhattan. In 1997, we bought our house in Santa Monica where our kids went through public school.
In 1995, I started playing softball in a pick up game in Mar Vista. This led to a group of us peeling off to play in the Santa Monica Recreation League. I played with the Coyotes for 20 years. Eventually, I discovered the Culver City Over-55 League which I joined in 2015. In the winter of 2016, I was recruited to play with BrokButcher in the Manhattan Beach senior League.
Thankfully my acting career has lasted 38 years. I have never had another job other than an acting job. With over 100 commercials, 160 film and TV appearances and over 50 plays, I have been very lucky. If you’re interested, you can check out some of the credits on my IMDB page at:
Some of the highlights have been appearing on all of the CSI shows or the “CSI Grand Slam”, “Julius Caesar” on Broadway with Al Pacino, “Trading Places” with Dan Akroyd and Eddie Murphy, “Red Dragon” with Sir Anthony Hopkins, “Bruce Almighty” with Jim Carrey, “Catch Me If You Can” with Leonardo DiCaprio, 3 “High School Musical” movies, “It’s Complicated” with Meryl Streep, Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin, “The Guilt Trip” with Barbara Streisand, “Legal Eagles” with Robert Redford, “Guess Who” with Bernie Mac and “The Men Who Stare At Goats” with George Clooney and Jeff Bridges. Currently, I can be seen as Mike Hallman on “Barry, Commander Pryce on “The Handmaid’s Tale” and William White on “Dear White People”. I shot “Baekdu Mountain” in Korea which will be released later this year as well as “Ratched” for Netflix.
I truly love playing in the Manhattan Beach League and look forward to every Thursday! Always grateful.