Biography

A tall, wavy-haired US actor with a deep, resonant voice, Clancy Brown has proven himself a versatile performer with first-class contributions to theatre, feature films, television series and even animation.

Clarence J. Brown III was born in 1959 in Urbana, Ohio, to Joyce Helen (Eldridge), a concert pianist, conductor, and composer, and Clarence J. "Bud" Brown, Jr., who helped manage the Brown Publishing Company, the family-owned newspaper started by Clancy's grandfather, Clarence J. Brown. Clancy's father and grandfather were also Republican congressmen from the same Ohio district, and Clancy spent much of his youth in close proximity to Washington, D.C. He plied his dramatic talents in the Chicago theatre scene before moving onto feature film with a sinister debut performance bullying Sean Penn inside a youth reformatory in Bad Boys: Les Mauvais Garçons (1983). He portrayed Viktor the Monster in the unusual spin on the classic Frankenstein story in La promise (1985), before scoring one of his best roles to date as the evil Kurgan hunting fellow immortals Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery across four centuries of time in Highlander (1986).

Brown played a corrupt American soldier in the Walter Hill-directed hyper-violent action film Extrême préjudice (1987), another deranged killer in Randonnée pour un tueur (1988) and a brutal prison guard, who eventually somewhat "befriends" wrongfully convicted banker Tim Robbins, in the moving Les Évadés (1994). His superb vocal talents were in demand, and he contributed voices to animated series, including Mortal Kombat: Les Gardiens du royaume (1995), Street Sharks (1994), Gargoyles (1994) and Superman (1996). Brown then landed two more plum roles, one as a "tough-as-nails" drill sergeant in the science fiction thriller Starship Troopers (1997), and the other alongside Robin Williams in the Disney comedy Flubber (1997).

The video gaming industry took notice of Clancy's vocal abilities, too, and he has contributed voices to several top selling video games, including Crash Bandicoot: La vengeance de Cortex (2001), Lands of Lore III (1999), Star Wars: Bounty Hunter (2002) and Crash Nitro Kart (2003). His voice is also the character of cranky crustacean Mr. Eugene H. Krabs in the highly successful Bob l'éponge (1999) animated series and films, and he contributed voices to Batman (2004), Jackie Chan (2000) and La Ligue des justiciers (2001) animated series. A popular and friendly personality, Clancy Brown continues to remain busy both through his vocal and acting talents in Hollywood.

- IMDb mini biography by: firehouse44@hotmail.com