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When I was in elementary school my brother, who is five years older, was already a legend. President of the Student Council, editor of the school paper, voted Most Likely to Succeed, he was a hard act to follow. I did well in school but lacked his outgoing personality and I was subjected to the dysfunctional "Why can't you be more like your brother?" query from several disappointed teachers. My brother was the star trumpet player in the school band and by the time I was in eighth grade I inherited both the trumpet and his first chair position. The only thing I didn't inherit was his talent and I eventually quit the orchestra, unable to cope with the constant comparisons. My brother attended a different high school so his reputation no longer preceded me, but I've always been interested in that difficult dynamic of living up to your brother's accomplishments.
I was sad to hear that actor Chris Penn was found dead yesterday at the age of 40. They're still not sure how he died, or they're not saying. Of course every article about him began by mentioning that he was Sean Penn's younger brother. Not that he wasn't well known in his own right. Chris Penn was a great actor. I first remember seeing him as Kevin Bacon's awkward friend Willard in "Footloose." The part was written with him in mind and it fit him like a glove. He really showed his stuff in films like "At Close Range" and "Reservoir Dogs" but my all-time favorite Chris Penn performance was as Jerry Kaiser in Robert Altman's "Short Cuts." Penn plays the shlubby husband of Jennifer Jason Leigh, a young mother who earns money from home by talking like a porn star to strangers as a phone sex operator while she cares for their young children. With a stellar cast that includes Jack Lemmon, Lily Tomlin, Tim Robbins, Lili Taylor, Robert Downey, Jr., and Frances McDormand, Penn delivers one of the strongest performances in the film, expertly showing how his good-natured persona is just a thin veneer over the rage that eventually causes him to explode.
I wonder what it's like to be known your whole life as someone else's brother. I haven't watched the show "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" in several seasons but yesterday I happened to see the show in which Chris Penn's "Footloose" co-star, Kevin Bacon, asks the Fab Five to help bring some style to his brother Michael, a talented musician and composer. While Kevin Bacon is stylish enough to be considered a confirmed metrosexual, the somewhat disheveled Michael needed all the help that the gay makeover artists could give him. He did look better at the end of the show but I was glad the boys didn't go too far in their transformation. We do see Michael gamely applying two different types of moisturizer to his face during the course of the episode, but I'd stake my life on the fact that he'll never touch any of these products again. (Are there really enough men who use moisturizers to keep these companies in business? The only moisturizer that has ever touched my face is the vegetable oil I end up covered with each Hanukkah while making potato latkes.) The Fab Five kept discussing the fact that Michael has spent his whole life being called "Kevin Bacon's brother" and they were going to make sure that he was the star of this show. Michael and Kevin seemed very close (they perform together in their band The Bacon Brothers) and Michael didn't seem fazed about being in the shadow of his more famous brother, but he did mention that his favorite times with his family are when they're all hanging out and not talking about what they've just "done." The Big Reveal happens at a Bacon Brothers charity concert at the end of the episode where Kevin is introduced, for once, as "Michael Bacon's brother."
There is an endless list of famous brother relationships in which one brother eclipses the other one in fame or attention. Some times the negative comparisons are just in the public's minds and the brothers remain unscathed. Other times it seems as if the less famous brother suffers from the inability to "catch up" to his sibling. I remember last year when Michael Douglas's younger brother Eric was found dead in his New York apartment. Eric used to frequently say how difficult it was to be the youngest member of such a high-profile family. I have no idea how big a factor this was during his troubled life, but I think you need a very strong ego if you want to be in the same profession as your very successful brother. Remember all the jokes about Frank Stallone? What must it be like to be one of the lesser known Baldwins? Changing your name might help—there are rarely comparisons made between Charlie Sheen and Emilio Estevez, both seem to be judged on their own merits. Maybe it's just a question of talent and temperament—the careers of people like Jeff and Beau Bridges never suffered for any brotherly comparisons. Of course each of them achieved their own fame separately, not one on the back of the other. And both Sheen/Estevez and the Bridges boys grew up with famous fathers, maybe that took the potential onus off of any brotherly competition.
When I still lived in Chicago in the mid-1980s, I came to Los Angeles on a business trip. I didn't have a driver's license yet (okay, I was 25 but that's a whole other story) so I remember taking a bus from the airport to the San Fernando Valley where I was staying. It must have been an off-hour because the only other passenger on the large city bus was Clint Howard, Ron Howard's younger brother. We quickly discovered that we were born a few months apart and had many of the same cultural references. In fact, he was in many of my cultural references. Howard starred in the 1967 series "Gentle Ben" in which the 8-year-old boy befriends a grizzly bear in the Florida Everglades. His father, Dennis Weaver, was always having to rescue Clint and his bear pal as they got into one dangerous scrape after another. I loved that show. I also remembered Clint from his supporting appearances on other TV sitcoms—from his recurring role as Ronnie Howard's friend Leon on "The Andy Griffith Show" to bit parts on "Please Don't East the Daisies" and "Bonanza." Howard gave a haunting performance in the third episode of the original "Star Trek" (at the age of 7!) as Balok, the commander of an alien spaceship who plans to destroy the enterprise and its inhabitants. He gives Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew ten minutes to pray to "consult whatever deity they believe in" before they are killed. Clint Howard has had a long and successful career, appearing in over 100 movies (including small roles in almost all of his brother's films) but I'm sure by this point he knows that no matter what he does he will always be known first and foremost as Ron Howard's little brother. You need to check out one of his latest ventures, the Internet-only "Clint Howard Variety Show," billed as "the shortest, cheapest variety show in the history of entertainment." Truly bizarre and I was so riveted I had to watch all six episodes in one sitting.
There are countless other examples of this dynamic among siblings. Many books have been written about the expectations placed on Kennedy boys. When oldest son Joseph was shot down during World War II, next-in-line John moved right into his slot whether he liked it or not. When John was assassinated, brother Bobby took up the mantle. Some presidential brothers, such as Billy Carter, were the subject of derision when they were negatively compared to their more accomplished brothers. Let us pray that Jeb or Neil Bush don't feel obligated to emulate their brother's White House ambitions.
History is filled with intrigue and scandal when it comes to royal brothers. It can't be an easy role especially for ambitious princes who know their only chance to sit on the throne is if their brother drops dead or marries an American divorcee and becomes a Nazi sympathizer. How do you think 21-year-old Prince Harry feels whenever he hears the old "an heir and a spare" joke, knowing that he is the "spare?" There can be a positive side to being in the number two position: many brothers of the first-in-line have been able to engage in behavior that would never be tolerated in their more prominent brother. I don't know if Harry has any desire to be king, but he should take heart and remember that several of his ancestors who were second-born sons got to fulfill that destiny, including his great-grandfather King George VI. I read yesterday that Prince Harry may be sent to Iraq later this year. I can assure you that his heir-to-the-throne brother will never be allowed near the place.
You know, I think one of the major factors in the famous-sibling relationship is how much the two of them look alike. Talent, too, and name, of course, but I can't help but feel bad for people like Frank Stallone that look like cheap knock-offs of celebrities. Even if Sylvester is not much more talented, he got famous first, and now all most people think about Frank Stallone is that he LOOKS like Sly. Emilio Estevez did a smart thing by not taking the Sheen name -- and he's lucky he doesn't look like a shareware version of Charlie. At least not too much.
Tangent: back in the 1990s, there was a show on (I think) UPN, called "Movie Stars". It was about Harry Hamlin and his wife, both of them A-list celebs raising their kids, and dealing with the mischief of his brother, a screenwriter trying to break into the biz. The show wasn't fantastic, but it did have a geeeeenius stroke: Hamlin's brother's best friends were Frank Stallone, Don Swayze, and Joey Travolta. Played by themselves.
Posted by: The Retropolitan | January 26, 2006 at 12:07 PM
There's a story, perhaps only urban legend, that when Eric Douglas was a standup comic things weren't going well one night. At one point he stopped, looked at one of his hecklers and said, "Hey pal, I'll have you know I am the son of Kirk Douglas!"
To which the heckler stood up and shouted back, "No, I am the son of Kirk Douglas!" and then another heckler stood and said, "NO! I am the son of Kirk Douglas" and so on and so on and so on.
It should be noted that Albert Brooks and Super Dave often talk about their perfectly normal well adjusted brother, the accountant.
Posted by: pops | January 26, 2006 at 04:04 PM
There was this one time (that I might have mentioned before) when I insulted the entire family of Baldwin brothers. In front of their mother and sister. It was not a good moment in my life.
As a mother of 2 boys very close in age, I can tell you it is quite a balancing act. They have gone up and down in their relationship through the years...I hope for the best in the future. Great post as always, Danny. Your insights are so much fun to read. Thanks!
Posted by: Randi(cruisin-mom) | January 27, 2006 at 12:57 PM
brother's in arms....the family dynamic is a powerful one.
Posted by: justin kreutzmann | January 28, 2006 at 02:35 PM