{"id":1499,"date":"2015-06-05T19:17:43","date_gmt":"2015-06-05T18:17:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/eyeplug.net\/magazine\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2020-08-09T16:59:36","modified_gmt":"2020-08-09T15:59:36","slug":"something-to-do-with-death-barry-brown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/something-to-do-with-death-barry-brown\/","title":{"rendered":"Final Performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

The American actor Barry Brown<\/strong> belongs to a generation of seventies performers which includes Jeff Bridges, James Woods and John Savage. <\/p>\n

A successful contract player for Universal Television, Barry was the youngest ever actor Emmy-nominated for his role as troubled teen in The Mod Squad<\/em>. <\/p>\n

In 1972, he teamed with Bridges as a draft dodger in Robert Benton\u2019s Bad Company<\/em> – a Dickensian western about a gang of young outlaws making their way through the new frontier. <\/p>\n

Barry\u2019s brooding performance soon caught the attention of Peter Bogdanovich, who offered him a lead role in Daisy Miller<\/em> (1974) as Frederick Winterbourne, the upper class ex-patriate in love with the eponymous Daisy, played by Cybill Shepherd. <\/p>\n

Winterbourne was the ideal part for Barry. He excelled in these period pieces. Bogdanovich describes him as ‘the only American actor I know who looks like he’s read a book.’ <\/p>\n

The film was snubbed by critics as a vanity project for Bogdanovich. Barry took the worst of it. His career stalled and he slipped into alcoholic depression.<\/p>\n

Throughout the seventies, he continued to work; appearing in episodes of Rhoda<\/em> and Police Woman <\/em>and on stage in \u2018Long Day\u2019s Jorney Into Night\u2019<\/em> with Geraldine Fitzgerald; but that breakthrough role never materialised.<\/p>\n

In his spare time, Barry collected obituaries of forgotten, old B-movie actors like Rondo Hatton and Joseph Calleia – he\u2019s reading death notices in the opening scenes of Daisy Miller.<\/em><\/p>\n

His last film role – a cameo appearance as a state trooper – was in Joe Dante’s Piranha<\/em> (1978). Dante and Barry were friends and had written articles for \u2018Castle of Frankenstein\u2019 and \u2018Films in Review\u2019 back in the sixties. <\/p>\n

On June 25 1978, Barry shot himself at his apartment. He had appeared in over 30 film and television productions. He was 27 years old.<\/p>\n

Perhaps his big breakthrough was just over the horizon. Now though, the tragic silhouette of Winterbourne standing over Daisy\u2019s grave just seems profoundly sad. A troubled actor left frozen in time. <\/p>\n

His brother, James, wrote the acclaimed memoirs \u2018The LA Diaries\u2019 and \u2018This River\u2019 covering Barry\u2019s dysfunctional upbringing in detail.<\/p>\n

His other credits also include \u2018Halls of Anger\u2019, \u2018The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid\u2019 and \u2018The Ultimate Thrill.\u2019<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The American actor Barry Brown began his career at the age of five. At 19, he was Emmy-nominated for playing a troubled teen in The Mod Squad. He made his first major screen appearance opposite Jeff Bridges in Halls of Anger (1970).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":1501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[204,147,121],"series":[],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cinema","tag-barry-brown","tag-cinema-2","tag-eyeplug"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16111,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/16111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1501"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eyeplug.net\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}