Published October 19, 2024
By Arlis Dittmer
This article is the third in a limited series about actors from Quincy who went on to perform on stage, screen and television. The most recent actor, Roy Brocksmith, was born in 1945. He began performing as a young child for various organizations. He loved to sing and could act and do comedy. He performed in churches and appeared on local television and radio shows. He was in school plays and variety programs during junior high and high school. He loved theater and could write, direct, and design plays at a very young age. He won awards in Quincy Senior High and in 1962, was considered the “best actor and most valuable” player in the school’s theater department. While still a teenager he acted with the Quincy Junior Theater and taught workshops on stagecraft which included set design.
The versatile Mr. Brocksmith worked with the Progressive Playhouse group where he designed and directed plays for the 1968 season. The playhouse began in 1958 with a small group of people who presented one act plays for various Quincy organizations. During the winter season they offered three plays using the Quincy Community Little Theater facility.
Brocksmith married his high school sweetheart, Adele Albright, and joined a touring theater company for two years. Returning to Quincy, he attended Hannibal-LaGrange College, Culver-Stockton College and graduated from Quincy College in 1970. All the while, he continued to act, write, and direct plays. Soon after graduation he and his wife moved to New York for work in the theater. He joined the Actor’s Equity Association and began to get small parts in theater productions on and off Broadway.
By the time the Brocksmith family arrived in New York City, Joseph Papp’s Shakespeare Festival was well established, having begun in 1954 in Central Park. In addition to summer productions there were also touring companies. In the early 1970s Roy toured the Midwest in Papp’s comedy, Two Gentlemen of Verona. Another memorable performance was his solo in the Threepenny Opera.
For Joseph Papp’s The Leaf People, Roy had a shaved head and was painted green. He appeared on a magazine cover in costume with Mr. Papp and considered the play his “arrival on Broadway.” Unfortunately, the play did not do well at the box office and had a short run. The November 23, 1975 Quincy Herald-Whig reported quoting Roy’s letter to his parents, “The New York Times said it was a bomb but a bomb with class. Variety gave me a nice review, and a lot of people know who I am. Broadway turned out to be everything I had hoped for- the lights and the people and the autograph hounds… Our dressing room was filled with flowers. After the reviews came out the fact that it smelled like a funeral parlor seemed very appropriate.”
During the 1970’s Roy continued to work on and off Broadway, appearing in plays and musicals. He also worked in famous regional theaters like the Guthrie in Minneapolis. Later in his career, he directed plays for the Alaska Repertory Theater in Anchorage. At the same time he was in a few movies as was his son, Blake, who was also interested in acting. In the King of the Gypsies, Blake played a nasty child and had no speaking lines. When Brocksmith was not performing in plays or movies, he had a night club act, wrote plays and taught acting classes.
Brocksmith returned to Quincy often. It was particularly notable when he returned in 1981 and played the title role in Tartuffe at Quincy College’s McHugh Theater. The theater department was closing which Brocksmith described as a “great pity.” The rest of the cast were Quincy College students. The October 19, 1981 Quincy Herald Whig article called him, “A big man…” with “big ambitions to match his size.”
After moving to California for more work in movies and television, he held small production plays in his home in the San Fernado Valley for nearly 10 years in the 1980s and 1990s. He became an actor-manager. He produced and directed only new plays. These plays were recognized as equity-waiver plays because they were produced for small audiences. His theater group was known as the California Cottage Theatre, which the Los Angeles Times called “decidedly eccentric,” while earlier play reviews called it “homey,” apparently depending on how avant-garde the play was.
The Brocksmith living room could accommodate around 40 people. The actors worked for free and there was no admission fee. Coffee and cookies made by his wife Adele were the intermission treats. Over 8,000 people attended his plays during those years.
Roy Brocksmith appeared in 35 movies and countless television shows. He was nominated for an Emmy. He died from complications of diabetes in 2001and is buried in Woodland Cemetery. A bench was placed in his memory at his favorite spot in the cemetery overlooking the Mississippi River. The bench has his name, and underneath it says actor, writer, director. Interestingly at the base of the bench is an abbreviated Jack London quote.
Jack London was an activist, a journalist and a novelist who lived in California, dying in 1916 at age 40. He lived dangerously and was famous for the novels, Call of the Wild and White Fang both set in Alaska.
The quote: “I would rather be ashes than dust. I would rather my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stilled in dry rot. Man’s chief purpose is to Live, not exist. I shall not waste my days trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.”
Arlis Dittmer is a retired health science librarian and former president of the Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County. During her years with Blessing Health System, she became interested in medical and nursing history—both topics frequently overlooked in history.
Sources:
“Brocksmith to Appear With Quincy Symphony.” Quincy Herald-Whig, November 24, 1996, 22.
Cherry, Kittredge. “Curtain Falling on QC Theater.” Quincy Herald-Whig, October 19, 1981, 18.
Foley, F. Kathleen. “Enchanted Stage Set for Quirky ‘Queens’.” Los Angeles Times, October 27, 1995.
Historical Society of Quincy and Adams County: Roy Brocksmith (adamscountyhistory.blogspot.com), July 9, 2010.
Husar, Edward. “Actor Roy Brocksmith dies.” Quincy Herald-Whig, December 17, 2001, 11.
Loynd, Ray. “Stage Review.” Los Angeles Times, July 10, 1992.
McLellan, Dennis. “Roy Brocksmith, 56; Made His Living Room a Theater.” Los Angeles Times, December 20, 2001.
“Mechanical Fact and Fantasy Learned in Junior Theater.” Quincy Herald-Whig, July 14, 1963, 25.
“Named Co-Winner.” Quincy Herald-Whig, May 20, 1967, 3.
“Playhouse Season To Begin on Oct. 3.” Quincy Herald-Whig, September 15, 1968, 37.
“Quality and Quantity.” Quincy Herald-Whig, February 9, 1968, 4.
“Quincy Community Little Theater.” Quincy Herald-Whig, July 23, 1967, 32.
“Roy Brocksmith.” Quincy Herald-Whig, December 30, 2001, 12.
“Roy Brocksmith ‘arrives’ on Broadway. Quincy Herald-Whig, November 23, 1975, 4F.
“Roy Brocksmith Touring with N. Y. Company.” Quincy Herald-Whig, November 14, 1973, 12.
Roy Eugene Brocksmith (1945-2001) – Find a Grave Memorial
“Senior High Awards.” Quincy Herald-Whig, June 1, 1962, 2.
Tigges, Laura. “A Man Who Loves Playing Off-the-wall Characters.” Quincy Herald-Whig, December 4, 1996, 26.
