Robert Guillaume
Robert Guillaume
Robert Guillaume is an American stage and television actor, known for his role as Benson on the TV-series Soap and the spin-off Benson, voicing the mandrill Rafiki in The Lion King and as Isaac Jaffe on Sports Night. In a career that has spanned more than 50 years he has worked extensively on stage, television, and film...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionTV Actor
Date of Birth30 November 1927
CitySt. Louis, MO
CountryUnited States of America
Racism may be as systemic as it always was. It is the great problem of America. It's the one stumbling block that I don't believe was ever smoothed over.
My acting ability would have sent me back to the post office. It was my singing that got me jobs. Ironically, now, people think of me as an actor and don't know me much as a singer.
I've certainly experienced racism, but it has not made a great impact on me. I have always thought, as I got older and older, I was more in charge of who I was. What someone thought about me or said about me made less of an impression on me at very vulnerable times.
I'm not trying to say that it never hurt or that I never felt its sting, but I can honestly say that I never blamed anybody for racism. I have considered it more of a manifestation of humanity's problem rather than my personal problem.
I'm never a person who likes anything I've done. It's just the way it is. Twenty years later, I can look at something I did, and I'm still thinking, 'You know, that could have been better if you had done it this way or that way.