Avery Brooks Bio
Avery Franklin Brooks (born October 2, 1948) is an American actor, director, singer, narrator, and educator whose career spans theater, television, film, and music. He is best known for his television roles as Captain Benjamin Sisko on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, as Hawk on Spenser: For Hire and its spinoff A Man Called Hawk, and as Dr. Bob Sweeney in the Academy Award–nominated film American History X. Brooks has earned a Saturn Award nomination and three NAACP Image Award nominations across his decades of work. He has also been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre and has received the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre from the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Early Life and Background
Avery Franklin Brooks was born on October 2, 1948, in Evansville, Indiana. He is the son of Eva Lydia Crawford, a choral conductor and music instructor, and Samuel Brooks, a singer and tool and die worker. His maternal grandfather, Samuel Travis Crawford, was also a singer and a graduate of Tougaloo College in 1901. When Avery was eight years old, his family moved to Gary, Indiana, after his father had been laid off from International Harvester. Brooks has said: “I was born in Evansville … but it was Gary, Indiana, that made me.”
The Brooks household was filled with music. His mother Eva was among the first African-American women to earn a master’s degree in music at Northwestern University, and she taught music wherever the family lived. His father was a member of the Wings Over Jordan Choir, an a cappella spiritual choir best known for performing on CBS radio from 1937 to 1947. His maternal uncle, Samuel Travis Crawford, was a member of the Delta Rhythm Boys. “Music is all around me and in me, as I am in it,” Brooks has said.
Brooks attended Indiana University and Oberlin College before completing a Bachelor of Arts plus a Master of Fine Arts at Rutgers University in 1976. He became the first African American to receive an MFA in acting and directing from Rutgers.
Path to Acting
Brooks began his professional path as an educator when he accepted an appointment in 1976 as an associate professor of theater arts at Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. His early theater credits include The Offering, A PHOTOGRAPH: A Study of Cruelty, and Are You Now or Have You Ever Been? in the 1970s. He started to gain wider recognition after his appearance in Spell #7 at the Public/Anspache Theater in New York City in 1979.
He subsequently starred in Othello at the Folger Shakespeare Festival in 1985 and in Fences at the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1990. Brooks also received critical acclaim for his one-man biographical drama Paul Robeson by Phillip Hayes Dean, a role he first performed in 1982 at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles and later brought to the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Longacre Theater on Broadway. These stage roles helped establish him as a serious dramatic actor with a deep baritone voice and a commanding presence.
Avery Brooks Career
Early Career (1977–1984)
Brooks began his professional career in 1977, the same year he recorded an album with saxophone player James Spaulding titled James Spaulding Plays the Legacy of Duke Ellington. That same year, he released his first film role and began teaching at Oberlin College. In 1984, Brooks received critical praise for his featured role in the PBS American Playhouse production Half Slave, Half Free: Solomon Northup’s Odyssey, directed by Gordon Parks. The story chronicled the life of Solomon Northup, a free man from New York who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 and held until 1853. Brooks also starred in the role of Uncle Tom in Showtime’s 1987 filmed adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, earning a nomination for an Ace Award for best actor in a movie or miniseries.
During this period Brooks also had the lead role in the 1985 Anthony Davis opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X. He appeared in the 1985 television movie Finnegan Begin Again and in the 1988 television movie Roots: The Gift, which featured his fellow Star Trek actors LeVar Burton, Kate Mulgrew, and Tim Russ.
Breakthrough (1985–2001)
In 1985, Brooks was cast in the role of Hawk on the ABC television detective series Spenser: For Hire. Based on the mystery novels by Robert Parker, the role made Hawk a popular character, and after three seasons Brooks in 1989 received his own short-lived spinoff series, A Man Called Hawk. Brooks returned to play Hawk in four Spenser television movies: Spenser: Ceremony, Spenser: Pale Kings and Princes, Spenser: The Judas Goat, and Spenser: A Savage Place.
Brooks is best known for his role as Commander Benjamin Sisko on the syndicated science-fiction television series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, which ran for seven seasons from 1993 to 1999. Brooks won the role by beating 100 other actors from all racial backgrounds to become the first Black-American captain to lead a Star Trek series. He also directed nine episodes of the series, including “Far Beyond the Stars,” an episode focusing on racial injustice. Series producer Ronald D. Moore said of Brooks: “Avery, like his character (Sisko), is a very complex man. He is not a demanding or ego-driven actor, rather he is a thoughtful and intelligent man who sometimes has insights into the character that no one else has thought about.” Brooks was nominated for a Saturn Award and two NAACP Image Awards for the role.
On the big screen, Brooks played Dr. Bob Sweeney in American History X (1998) alongside Edward Norton, and Paris in the 1998 film The Big Hit with Mark Wahlberg. His last feature-film role was in 2001 as Detective Leon Jackson in 15 Minutes, which also starred Robert De Niro and Edward Burns.
Notable Works and Milestones
Beyond Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Brooks’ signature works include Spenser: For Hire, A Man Called Hawk, American History X, and 15 Minutes. During 1994, he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre, and in 2007 he was one of 15 actors honored with the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre by the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C. He reprised Othello for the Shakespeare Theatre Company in a 2005 production directed by Michael Kahn and returned in Fall 2007 to play the title role in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine.
Avery Brooks Award Nominations
Avery Brooks has earned recognition from several major award bodies throughout his career. He was nominated for a Saturn Award and two NAACP Image Awards for his work on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. He also received a nomination for an Ace Award for best actor in a movie or miniseries for his role in the 1987 Showtime adaptation of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. A third NAACP Image Award nomination came for his voice work as King Maximus in the animated series Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child. Brooks narrated the audiobook of Alex Haley’s Roots: The Saga of an American Family, which won an Audie Award in 2008 in the Non-Fiction category.
Avery Brooks Awards Won
Brooks’ most distinguished honors come from the world of theater and the performing arts. In 1994, he was inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre in recognition of his contributions to the stage. In 2007, he was one of 15 actors of the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, D.C., to receive the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre. Brooks also served as artistic director for the National Black Arts Festival in association with Rutgers University from 1993 to 1996 and has done extensive work with the Smithsonian Institution’s Program in Black American Culture.
Avery Brooks Family
Avery Brooks married his wife, Vicki Lenora Brooks, an assistant dean at Rutgers University, in 1976. The couple has three children. Brooks was raised in a deeply musical family: his mother Eva Lydia Crawford was a choral conductor and music instructor, his father Samuel Brooks was a singer and member of the Wings Over Jordan Choir, and his maternal grandfather Samuel Travis Crawford was a singer who graduated from Tougaloo College in 1901. His maternal uncle, Samuel Travis Crawford, was a member of the Delta Rhythm Boys.
Personal Life
Brooks has lived a life shaped by music, education, and the stage. In 2006, he released his debut album Here, an album of jazz and blues covers as well as spoken word. He has performed on stage with musicians including Butch Morris, Lester Bowie, and Jon Hendricks, and sang the role of Cinque in Anthony Davis’s 1992 opera Tania. Brooks is a fan of baseball and names Dick Allen as his favorite player.