Andre Braugher

Andre Braugher, who portrays Detective Frank Pembleton on television's popular police drama "Homicide," was honored by the Maryland Heart Association at its annual Heart Ball at the Hyatt Regency Baltimore. The reason? His realistic and compelling portrayal of a stroke survivor.Braugher told me: "I'm glad the portrayal has had a positive effect, and given broader understanding to the effects of stroke -- especially among African-Americans."Among the 750 attendees at the gala, which had as its theme Monte Carlo's Grand Prix, were Brian King, chairman of the board of the Maryland Affiliate of the American Heart Association, and his wife, Anne Lynn King; and ball co-chairs Chris Thomson, executive director of St. Joseph Medical Center; Dr. Judy A. Reitz, senior vice president of operations at Johns Hopkins Hospital; Bill Balke, a Hopkins cardiologist, and his wife, Denise Quandt, vice president of provider relations at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

One of the great dangers of being too good in your first big TV role is that the only offers you tend to get after it are from people who want you to play another version of the same character. That's what happened with Andre Braugher after NBC's "Homicide: Life on the Street," the acclaimed Baltimore-based police drama that featured him as Detective Frank Pembleton from 1993 to 1998. Pembleton, the über-cop, went well beyond simply solving murder cases in a fictional Charm City.

When Andre Braugher walked in the theater, the 18 high school students in the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival's workshop didn't miss a beat. They kept right on with their warm-up exercises -- shaking their bodies like limp spaghetti, and repeating nonsense syllables like "Bitty, bitty, bitty, bitty" -- as the acclaimed actor took a seat in the back.Most of these students were attracted to last weekend's workshop by the chance to work with Braugher, best known as Detective Frank Pembleton on NBC's "Homicide."

If you are not watching TNT's new drama, "Men of a Certain Age," you are missing weekly television's finest actor in one of the medium's most socially relevant roles of the season. I am talking about Andre Braugher as Owen Thoreau Jr., a middle-age Chevrolet salesman and father of three working for his dad's auto dealership, where he has become one of the staff's weakest performers. Talk about a TV series working the same thematic turf as Arthur Miller's American classic, "Death of Salesman."

Some of the ethnic diversity so lacking in last year's new network television series is expected to be seen today when ABC and the WB unveil their fall lineups to advertisers in New York. ABC has Emmy-winning Andre Braugher, of "Homicide: Life on the Street," starring as the head doctor of a large hospital in a new drama called "Gideon's Crossing," and Damon Wayans in a sitcom titled "Wife & Kids." In addition, The WB will announce that it is picking up Eddie Murphy's animated series, "The PJs," from Fox, where it has languished since its 1999 debut.

After two helpings of Bertha's mussels with garlic butter, Andre Braugher wants a smoke. He steps outside the landmark Fells Point restaurant and commands a park bench, where he frees a Marlboro from the pack.A panhandler appears with a fresh black eye and a stale story. Mr. Braugher measures the man. Obviously, the guy is drunk and was just kicked out of a bar , says Mr. Braugher, who keeps his money in his pocket. "I wish I could give away skills."Andre Braugher's skill is acting. He plays "Homicide's" Detective Frank Pembleton -- the bald one in the big cast.

NBC was a big winner and an even bigger loser at last night's 50th annual Emmy Awards.Andre Braugher, of the NBC drama "Homicide: Life on the Street," and stars in three of the network's key sitcoms won the major acting awards last night.But the network was also saddled with the longest and one of the least memorable Emmy telecasts ever -- four hours of flat clip packages, tedious standing features and a couple of lame musical numbers.The win for Braugher and "Homicide," produced in Baltimore, was especially sweet after six years of the show's being shortchanged by the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences because it's made outside Hollywood.

Andre Braugher is returning to series television, and once upon a time, that would have been very big news. In the 1990s, he was widely considered as good as it gets when it comes to TV acting. The Stanford University and Juilliard School graduate was nominated three times for the Emmy for Best Male Actor in a drama series, and, in 1998, he won for his performance as Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street. That year, Entertainment Weekly labeled him "Andre the giant: the best actor on TV."

Andre Braugher, an acclaimed Shakespearean actor who portrays Detective Pembleton on television's "Homicide: Life on the Street," will lead the first student actors workshop to be sponsored by the Baltimore Shakespeare Festival.The workshop, Feb. 3-4, is geared to high-school students who have an interest in the theater but no professional acting background.The two-day workshop, made possible through a grant from First Maryland Bancorp Trust Group, will immerse the local teen-agers in a variety of activities presented by nationally prominent experts in various fields of the theater.

Across a crystalline phone line from New Jersey, a man is heard loading a dishwasher, then running a disposal. "It's my job to get the kitchen ship-shape," he explains, before vigorously and decisively blowing his nose."

The Mist, slack yet also bludgeoning, derives from a taut, skillful Stephen King novella about a "white and bright but nonreflecting" fogbank that sweeps through a small Maine town. It becomes increasingly terrifying in its "impartiality" and resistance to the normal influences of weather and environment. A few dozen town residents and tourists hole up in the local food market and discover that the mist hides a menagerie of giant, mutant-like man-eaters. Just as frightening as the fog of inter-species war from the outside is the fog of paranoia inside.

Hollywood is mining its past for movie gold this summer, reaching as far back as the 1930s in hopes of bolstering ticket sales after last year's mediocre box-office totals. From May through September, this summer's release schedule is replete with remakes and sequels -- 11 in all -- as filmmakers reimagine everything from a Kryptonian superhero and hipster cops to slackers and the Son of Satan himself. By summer's end, audience response to this dependence on old favorites should prove that: A)

Andre Braugher is returning to series television, and once upon a time, that would have been very big news. In the 1990s, he was widely considered as good as it gets when it comes to TV acting. The Stanford University and Juilliard School graduate was nominated three times for the Emmy for Best Male Actor in a drama series, and, in 1998, he won for his performance as Detective Frank Pembleton in the NBC drama Homicide: Life on the Street. That year, Entertainment Weekly labeled him "Andre the giant: the best actor on TV."

There is more than a little understatement at play when Steven Bochco, co-creator of such landmark police series as Hill Street Blues and NYPD Blue, says, "I always thought the television cop drama was a pretty good way to look at America." Bochco, the man behind some of the most successful cop dramas in TV history, knows it's a very good way to look at America. It has been, in fact, one of the most enduring and resonant formulas in which to see our collective fears and aspirations symbolically played out on the landscape of prime-time television.

LOS ANGELES -- Andre Braugher got his own series on ABC, Michael Michele moved on to ER, Clark Johnson directed a film about the Montgomery bus boycott for HBO, and Kyle Secor will be featured in the premiere episodes of two new network dramas this fall, ABC's Philly with Kim Delaney, and NBC's Crossing Jordan, with Jill Hennessy. But you might be surprised to know that no alum of Homicide: Life on the Street, the critically acclaimed NBC drama that made Baltimore its home during the 1990s, has been busier since the series ended than Jon Seda, who played Detective Paul Falsone during the last two seasons of the series.

If only Gore and Bush were running for vice president. Kostunica is the man. But you wouldn't want to sell him life insurance. Israel and the Arab neighbors have not had a real war in 27 years and too many people on both sides feel cheated. Route 404 could hold the record for longest bottleneck. Cheer up. Andre Braugher is back battling God and death.

That's the trouble with the bay. Too many oysters and not enough crabs.Son, become an independent prosecutor. They always need one more.If India needs the bomb, Pakistan does, which means Iran does, and Afghanistan and then Tajikistan. You get the idea."Homicide" without Andre Braugher won't be more than second degree manslaughter.Pub Date: 5/13/98

If only Gore and Bush were running for vice president. Kostunica is the man. But you wouldn't want to sell him life insurance. Israel and the Arab neighbors have not had a real war in 27 years and too many people on both sides feel cheated. Route 404 could hold the record for longest bottleneck. Cheer up. Andre Braugher is back battling God and death.

"Duets" is a romantic ensemble drama-slash-road movie that takes place in the rarified parallel universe of karaoke. Like fans of "Star Trek" and other sub-cultures, karaoke has its own devoted partisans, people who live for the night at their local bar, where they can sing along to pre-recorded versions of their favorite songs to the delight or agony of their fellow crooners. It's a rich human vein to tap, but "Duets" uses karaoke as a backdrop, without providing a deeper context. The movie follows three duos who've been thrown together by fate - each of whom is travelling to a karaoke championship in Omaha, where their destinies, inevitably, catch up with them.

Some of the ethnic diversity so lacking in last year's new network television series is expected to be seen today when ABC and the WB unveil their fall lineups to advertisers in New York. ABC has Emmy-winning Andre Braugher, of "Homicide: Life on the Street," starring as the head doctor of a large hospital in a new drama called "Gideon's Crossing," and Damon Wayans in a sitcom titled "Wife & Kids." In addition, The WB will announce that it is picking up Eddie Murphy's animated series, "The PJs," from Fox, where it has languished since its 1999 debut.