// Workers AI · dad joke modeIs Foster Brooks a good listener? He's a real foster parent to your problems.

Not to be confused with Brooks Foster.

Foster Brooks
Born	Foster Murrell Brooks (1912-05-11)May 11, 1912 Louisville, Kentucky, U.S.
Died	December 20, 2001(2001-12-20) (aged 89) Encino, Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupations	Actor comedian singer
Years active	1952–1996
Spouses	Loretta Brooks ​ ​ (m. 1933; div. 1950)​ Teri Brooks ​ (m. 1950⁠–⁠2001)​
Children	6

Foster Murrell Brooks (May 11, 1912 – December 20, 2001) was an American actor and comedian best known for his portrayal of a lovable drunk in nightclub performances and television programs.

Early life

Brooks was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on May 11, 1912, to Edna (née Megowan) and Pleasant M. Brooks. He had seven brothers. His career started in radio, notably with station WHAS in Louisville. He was a staff announcer, and his deep baritone voice was also well-suited for singing. Brooks gained fame for his reporting of the Ohio River flood of 1937, where he was featured on emergency broadcasts by WHAS and also WSM from Nashville, Tennessee. In 1952, Brooks appeared on local TV in a short-lived spoof of Gene Autry and his "Singing Cowboys".

He later worked in local broadcasting as a radio and TV personality at WHAM in Rochester, New York, and at WGR & WKBW in Buffalo, where he hosted "The Musical Clock" and "Million Dollar Ballroom". In Buffalo, Brooks also performed with a country and western vocal group known as the Hi-Hatters. In 1997 Brooks was inducted into the Buffalo Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame. Moving to the West Coast, he launched a career as a stand-up comic and character actor.

In 1960, Brooks moved with his family to Los Angeles to seek more professional opportunities. During this time, he appeared on television comedies such as The Munsters, The Monkees and Bewitched. Brooks also delivered Christmas mail and phone books, and managed an apartment building in North Hollywood. In addition, he worked as a security guard for the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team.

On the syndicated Steve Allen Show of the 1960s, Allen introduced Brooks as an important movie producer. Brooks stumbled on stage doing his drunk act, fooling some of the other guests. Brooks claimed to be the executive in charge of editing movies for television. His biggest success, he said, was the famous movie The Three Commandments. His character also claimed to have invented the concept of removing clips from the movies and inserting commercials.

In 1969, game show icon and television personality Dennis James took his friend Brooks to a North Carolina charity golf tournament to tell some jokes, and then introduced Brooks to good friend, singer Perry Como, who in turn gave the comedian his major break. Como chose Brooks to open for him at a Las Vegas hotel. When the hotel's owners balked at Como's choice due to Brooks' age and lack of fame, Como insisted and the owners acquiesced. Brooks was an instant hit. He made his first appearance soon thereafter on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson.

Career

Brooks regularly appeared on The Dean Martin Show television program in the 1970s (for which he garnered an Emmy Award nomination in 1974) as well as many situation comedies and talk shows, (including The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson). Mr. Brooks appeared many times on the Bill Cosby variety show in 1972.

His signature routine was the basis of a hit comedy album titled Foster Brooks, The Lovable Lush, released in the early 1970s. As his "Lovable Lush" character, Brooks usually portrayed a conventioneer who had had a few too many drinks—not falling-down drunk, but inebriated enough to mix up his words and burp to comedic delight. Brooks is best remembered for his appearances on The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast during the 1970s, where he roasted other comedians, such as Don Rickles, Johnny Carson and Lucille Ball, and serious public figures such as writer Truman Capote, consumer activist Ralph Nader, and former vice president Hubert Humphrey.

During his period of greatest fame, Brooks rarely drank. Of giving up drinking to win a bet in 1964, Brooks said, "A fellow made me a $10 bet I couldn't quit, and I haven't had a drink since. At the time I needed the $10."

He would occasionally make cameo appearances in which his character was perfectly sober, such as his appearance in a 1968 episode of Adam-12 playing a strait-laced citizen who tries to get out of a parking ticket by dropping the name of an officer senior to the main characters. He also played the character Harry Sachs in a 1969 episode of Adam-12 in which he performed as a highly intoxicated man standing in the middle of a street, waving his suit jacket at oncoming traffic, as if he were a bullfighter. In a later Adam-12 episode, he plays a stoned man, stopped for erratic driving, who tries to hide the burning marijuana "joint" in his suit's front pocket. In a more serious Adam-12 appearance, he portrayed a drunken driver who killed another driver in an accident on Christmas Eve.

On the comedy series Green Acres in the 1969 episode "Economy Flight to Washington", Brooks' boozy, bobble-headed character meets and befriends the pig Arnold Ziffel in a hotel bar. In the scene, ostensibly through the haze of alcohol, Brooks mistakes the anthropomorphic pig for a U.S. Air Force lieutenant, since the animal is sitting on a bar stool and is wearing a white leather aviator's cap, goggles, and a red scarf. Brooks acted again on Green Acres in 1969, this time giving a "sober" performance as Charlie Williams, a chemist, in the episode "The Milk Maker". The following year he returned to his whiskey-soaked persona on the television western The High Chaparral. Brooks asked Dean Martin to join his group "Alcoholics Unanimous", a play on Alcoholics Anonymous. He boasted he and Martin were charter members of the DUI (Driving Under the Influence) Hall of Fame.

In the 1970s, Brooks appeared as a celebrity panelist on the game shows Celebrity Sweepstakes, Hollywood Squares and Match Game, and in 1979, he appeared in the film The Villain as a bank clerk.

Public sensibilities had changed regarding alcoholics and public drunkenness by the 1980s, so Brooks moved away from his drunken character. In 1983, Brooks appeared in the film Cannonball Run II with comedians Louis Nye and Sid Caesar as fishermen in a rowboat. He had a recurring role as Mr. Sternhagen, Mindy's boss on Mork & Mindy. His name was a moniker on a Louisville celebrity golf tournament benefiting Kosair Charities. Brooks was a Shriner and member of the Al Malaikah Shriners, Los Angeles. He also made occasional guest appearances on TV shows in which he would demonstrate his singing voice.

Brooks' last performance was at a celebrity roast in Las Vegas for Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Later career and legacy

Years later Brooks was referred to on the Cartoon Network television show Space Ghost Coast to Coast (episode 45, "Switcheroo II"). He was featured in a scene that was cut before being aired, but the scene was later included on the Space Ghost Coast to Coast volume 3 DVD release. He is also referenced on an episode of Get a Life called "Paperboy 2000". On the March 1, 2010, episode of The Daily Show, Jon Stewart referred to Senator Sheldon Whitehouse's mispronunciation of a constituent's name by saying, "It's not supposed to end on a Foster Brooks hiccup." He was mentioned in the lyrics of a Loudon Wainwright III song, "Wine With Dinner".

Personal life

Brooks was first married to Loretta Brooks, with whom he had a son and three daughters; one daughter died in infancy. Foster and Loretta divorced in 1950. That same year, he married Teri Brooks, with whom he had two daughters. Brooks' brother, Tom, was a well-known entertainer in Louisville for many years. Brooks's nephew Randy Brooks is a comedy songwriter, best known for his composition "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer", recorded by Randy's friend Elmo Shropshire and inspired by an unnamed "tipsy" member of the Brooks family.

Death

Brooks died on December 20, 2001, at his home in Encino, California, from heart failure. He was 89 years old.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1971	The Late Liz	Howard Borman
1976	Super Seal	Harold
1979	The Villain	Bank Clerk
1983	Cracking Up	The Pilot
1984	Oddballs	Hardy Bassett
1984	Cannonball Run II	Fisherman #1
1986	GoBots: Battle of the Rock Lords	Stoneheart / Fossil Lord	Voice
1991	The Giant of Thunder Mountain	Doc (Townsman)

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1962	Gunsmoke	Ed	S8:E3, "Quint Asper Comes Home"
1965	The Munsters	The Admiral	S2:E6, "Happy 100th Anniversary"
1966	I Dream of Jeannie	Englishman	S1:E16, "Get Me to Mecca on Time"
	Tammy	Elmer	S1:E25, "Uncle Lucius Returns"
	Bewitched	Robert Andrews	S2:E29, "Disappearing Samantha"
	Laredo	Harry Tyson	S2:E9, "One Two Many Voices"
1967	Mr. Terrific	1st Man	S1:E2, "Mr. Big Curtsies Out"
	The Monkees	Conventioneer	S1:E30, "Monkees in Manhattan"
	The Flying Nun	Passenger	S1:E12, "Young Man with a Cornette"
1968	Death Valley Days	Phil Stockton	S16:E21, "A Friend Indeed"
	It Takes a Thief	Judge	S2:E6, "The Packager"
	It Takes a Thief	Drunk	S2:E9, "A Case of Red Turnips"
	The Beverly Hillbillies	Fiddlin Sam Dingle	S6:E25, "The Clampetts Fiddle Around"
	Green Acres	Major	S3:E27, "The Rutabaga Story"
	Adam-12	Man	S1:E10, "Log 132: Producer"
	Adam-12	Citizen	S1:E12, "Log 61: The Runaway"
1969	Green Acres	Man	S4:E19, "Economy Flight to Washington"
	Green Acres	Charlie Williams	S4:E25, "The Milk Maker"
	The Mod Squad	Will Jackson	S1:E22, "Child of Sorrow, Child of Light"
	The Survivors	Stafford	S1:E7, "Chapter Seven"
	Bonanza	Judge	S11:E1, "Another Windmill to Go"
	Adam-12	Harry Sachs	S2:E7, "Log 63: Baby"
1970	Bonanza	Judge Rogers	S11:E20, "The Law and Billy Burgess"
	The High Chaparral	Drunk	S3:E21, "The Reluctant Deputy"
	Daniel Boone	Stranger	S6:E24, "Bringing Up Josh"
	Gunsmoke	Sporting Gentleman #1	S16:E9, "The Gun"
	Adam-12	George Selfridge	S3:E11, "Log 46: Pilgrimage"
1971	The Beverly Hillbillies	Man	S9:E15, "The Grun Incident"
	Green Acres	Farmer #1	S6:E23, "The Hole in the Porch"
	The Partners	Willy Cooper	S1:E3, "The Prisoner of Fender"
1972	Arnie	Dr. Matthews	S2:E17, "What's Up, Doc?"
	Adam-12	Mr. Allen	S4:E19, "Mary Hong Loves Tommy Chen"
1973	Here's Lucy	David Benton Miller	S6:E10, "Tipsy Through the Tulips"
1976	Starsky & Hutch	Drunk Gambler	S2:E1, "The Las Vegas Strangler, Part 1"
1977	Switch	Dale Abee	2 episodes
	Police Woman	Darryl Everson	S4:E9, "Ambition"
1978	Fantasy Island	Frank 'Spider' Randall	S1:E12, "The Over-the-Hill Caper/Poof, You're a Movie Star"
1979	Sweepstakes	Edgar	S1:E1, "Lynn and Grover and Joey"
	B. J. and the Bear	Terry Morgan	S1:E3, "A Coffin with a View"
1981	Mork & Mindy	Miles Sternhagen	3 episodes
1982	Today's FBI	Rainey	S1:E18, "Kidnap"
	Madame's Place	Self	S1:E18, "Who Laughs Last?"
1983	Quincy, M.E.	Carriage Driver	S8:E19, "Murder on Ice"
1986	Small Wonder	Roland Cardwell	S2:E5, "Home Sweet Homeless"
1987	The New Mike Hammer	Manny, The Great Mandrell	S3:E12, "Elegy for a Tramp"
	Murder, She Wrote	Simon Thane	S3:E17, "Simon Says, Color Me Dead"
1990	The Munsters Today	Igor	S2:E13, "Reunion"
	What a Dummy	Jackie Clark	S1:E1, "What a Dummy"
1996	Cosby	Actor	S1:E5, "The Best Little Antique Shop in Astoria"

See also

• List of comedians
• List of people from the Louisville metropolitan area

External links

• Foster Brooks at IMDb
• Performing on Dean Martin show on YouTube video clip
• Foster Brooks discography at Discogs