Avery Franklin Brooks (born October 2, 1948) is an American actor, director, singer, narrator and educator. 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 delivered a variety of other performances to a great deal of acclaim. He has been nominated for a Saturn Award and three NAACP Image Awards. Brooks has also been inducted into the College of Fellows of the American Theatre and bestowed with the William Shakespeare Award for Classical Theatre by the Shakespeare Theatre Company.
Early life
Avery Brooks was born in Evansville, Indiana, the son of Eva Lydia (née 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, who graduated from 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, who was among the first African-American women to earn a master's degree in music at Northwestern University, 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. He later completed his Bachelor of Arts plus a Master of Fine Arts from Rutgers University in 1976, becoming the first African American to receive an MFA in acting and directing from Rutgers.
Television career
Spenser: For Hire: Hawk
In 1985, Brooks was cast in the role of Hawk on the ABC television detective series Spenser: For Hire, based on the mystery series published by Robert Parker. Hawk became a popular character, and after three seasons, Brooks in 1989 received his own, short-lived spinoff series, A Man Called Hawk.
Brooks said of his role as Hawk: "I never thought of myself as the sidekick... I've never been the side of anything. I just assumed that I was equal."
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.
Star Trek: Benjamin Sisko
Brooks is best known for his role as 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 of Commander Benjamin Sisko by beating 100 other actors from all racial backgrounds to become the first Black-American captain to lead a Star Trek series. Brooks 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. He has also been unfailingly polite and a classy guy in all my dealings with him.
Brooks was nominated for a Saturn Award and two NAACP Image Awards for the role.
Other roles
In 1984, Brooks received critical praise for his featured role in PBS's American Playhouse production of 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 kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841 and held until 1853, when he regained his freedom with the help of family and friends. It was adapted from Northup's memoir, Twelve Years a Slave (1853).
Brooks appeared in the 1985 television movie adaptation of Finnegan Begin Again. In 1987, he starred in the role of Uncle Tom in Showtime's filmed adaptation of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Brooks was nominated for an Ace Award in the category of best actor in a movie or miniseries for that said role. A third project that allowed Brooks to highlight the history of African Americans was his performance in the 1988 television movie Roots: The Gift, which featured his fellow Star Trek actors LeVar Burton, Kate Mulgrew, and Tim Russ.
During 1998 he also supplied the voice of King Maximus in an episode of the animated TV series, Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales for Every Child entitled "The Golden Goose". Brooks was eventually nominated for an NAACP Image Award within the category of Outstanding Performance in a Youth or Children's Series/Special for the role. He also voiced the character of Nokkar in an episode of the Disney animated series Gargoyles.
In 2001, Brooks narrated and appeared in a series of commercials for IBM.
Teaching and cultural work
Brooks has taught at Oberlin College and Case Western Reserve University. A graduate of Livingston College and Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University, he accepted an appointment in 1976 as an associate professor of theater arts at Mason Gross.
From 1993 to 1996, Brooks was artistic director for the National Black Arts Festival in association with Rutgers University. Held annually since 1988 in Atlanta, Georgia, the internationally renowned festival celebrates African-American culture and people of African descent. In addition, Brooks has also done extensive work with the Smithsonian Institution's Program in Black American Culture.
Music
A deep baritone singer, Brooks has performed on stage with Butch Morris, Lester Bowie, and Jon Hendricks. He also recorded an album with saxophone player James Spaulding, James Spaulding Plays the Legacy of Duke Ellington (Storyville, 1977). Brooks had the lead role in the 1985 Anthony Davis opera X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X, and, later, sang the role of Cinque in Davis's 1992 opera Tania. Also, he performed at the Paris Banlieues Bleues Festival in 2005. In his role as Benjamin Sisko, he performed the Frank Sinatra tune "The Best Is Yet to Come" at the conclusion of the Deep Space Nine episode "Badda-Bing Badda-Bang" as a duet with James Darren.
In a brief venture into scoring, Brooks composed the musical score for the final two episodes of A Man Called Hawk, in which he starred.
In 2006, Brooks released his debut album, Here, an album of jazz and blues covers, as well as spoken word. During 2016 Brooks performed in concert with the Springfield Symphony Orchestra at the Springfield Symphony Hall. In 2020, Brooks was featured on The DX Experiment's debut album, Black In My Own Way, an album of experimental music with spoken word.
Theater
Brooks received critical acclaim in Phillip Hayes Dean's play Paul Robeson. Brooks portrayed the life of the famous singer, actor, and civil-rights activist in a one-man, critically acclaimed biographical drama. He has performed the role since 1982 at the Westwood Playhouse in Los Angeles, the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and the Longacre Theater on Broadway. He also portrayed Robeson in Are You Now Or Have You Ever Been?, both on- and off-Broadway.
Brooks' 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 recognition after his appearance in Spell at the Public/Anspache Theater in New York City in 1979. He subsequently starred in Othello at the Folger Shakespeare Festival (1985) and Fences at the Repertory Theater of St. Louis, Missouri, in 1990. He reprised the role of Othello at the Washington Shakespeare Theater in 1990–1991.
During 1994, he was inducted in the College of Fellows of the American Theatre. Brooks later appeared in the title role…