Rene Auberjonois

René Murat Auberjonois (born June 1, 1940) is an American film, television, and theater actor. He is well known for portraying Father Mulcahy in the film version of M*A*S*H, Chef Louis in The Little Mermaid (and singing "Les Poissons") and for originating a number of characters in long-running television series, including Clayton Endicott III on Benson (for which he was nominated for an Emmy Award), Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and attorney Paul Lewiston on Boston Legal. --- Auberjonois was born in New York City. His father, Swiss-born Fernand Auberjonois (1910–2004), was a Cold War-era foreign correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer. His grandfather, also named René Auberjonois, was a Swiss post-Impressionist painter. His mother, Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline Murat (1913-1986), was a great-great granddaughter of Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon's marshals and King of Naples during the First French Empire, and his wife Caroline Bonaparte, Napoleon's youngest sister. His maternal grandmother, Hélène Macdonald Stallo (1893–1932), was an American, from Cincinnati, Ohio; his maternal grandfather's mother was a Russian noblewoman, Eudoxia Michailovna Somova (1850–1924), and his maternal grandfather's paternal grandmother, Caroline Georgina Fraser (1810-1879) who was married to Prince Napoleon Lucien Charles Murat, was also an American, from Charleston, South Carolina. Auberjonois has a sister and a brother and also two half-sisters from his mother's first marriage. His family moved to Paris after World War II, where at an early age he decided to become an actor. After a few years in France, the family moved back to the U.S. and joined an artists' colony in Rockland County, New York, whose other residents included Burgess Meredith, John Houseman and Helen Hayes. The environment confirmed Auberjonois' decision to act, and he made important contacts that were to advance his career. One of the most influential contacts Auberjonois made during this period was Houseman, who gave him his first job in the theater at sixteen years of age as an apprentice. They worked together again later, when Auberjonois taught under Houseman at the Juilliard School, and Auberjonois stated in a 1993 interview that Houseman was the person who had most influenced his career.[citation needed] The Auberjonois family also lived in London where Auberjonois completed high school while studying theatre. To complete his education, Auberjonois attended and graduated from the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University). After college, Auberjonois worked with several different theatre companies, beginning at the prestigious Arena Stage in Washington, D.C. He then traveled between Los Angeles and New York working in numerous theatre productions. Auberjonois helped found the American Conservatory Theatre in San Francisco, the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, and the Brooklyn Academy of Music Repertory Company in New York. He was a member of the Peninsula Players summer theater program during the 1962 season. Eventually, Auberjonois landed a role on Broadway in 1968, and ended up appearing in three plays at once: as Fool to Lee J. Cobb's King Lear (the longest running production of the play in Broadway history), as Ned in A Cry of Players (opposite Frank Langella), and as Marco in Fire!. The next year, he earned a Tony Award for his performance as Sebastian Baye alongside Katharine Hepburn in Coco. Auberjonois also received Tony nominations for his roles in Neil Simon's The Good Doctor (1973, opposite Christopher Plummer); as The Duke in Big River (1984), winning a Drama Desk Award; and, memorably, as Buddy Fidler/Irwin S. Irving in City of Angels (1989), written by Larry Gelbart and Cy Coleman. --- After M*A*S*H, Auberjonois's movie roles have included the gangster Tony in Police Academy 5: Assignment Miami Beach (1988) and Reverend Oliver in The Patriot (2000). He has made cameo appearances in a number of films, including Dr. Burton, a mental asylum doctor patterned after Tim Burton, in Batman Forever, and a bird expert who gradually transforms into a bird in Robert Altman's 1970 film Brewster McCloud. He cameoed as Colonel West in the 1991 Star Trek film Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. His other notable film appearances have included McCabe & Mrs. Miller (1971, starring Warren Beatty), The Hindenburg (1975), the first remake of King Kong (1976), The Big Bus (1976), Eyes of Laura Mars (1978), Where The Buffalo Roam (1980), My Best Friend Is a Vampire (1988), Eulogy, The Feud and Inspector Gadget (1999). Auberjonois also portrayed the character of Straight Hollander in the 1993 Miramax film The Ballad of Little Jo. He voiced Professor Genius in Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland, Louis the Chef in the 1st and 2nd Little Mermaid films and the Butler in Joseph: King of Dreams.