His mother’s name sounds very Old Europe, comprised of SIX different first names! I picture a family rich aristocrats in a Tudor mansion.
A drawing room with high vaulted ceilings. Walls lined with embossed damask linen. Large portraits of her ancestors hang on those walls. Uniformed Generals glowering, Silken Gowned ladies peering down at all the visitors.
Someone is playing an organ. The soft melodies of
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme’ (Sleepers Awake!) by J.S. Bach fill the room and the corridors.
You mean I shouldn’t have used Susan Boyle?
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The Auberjonois family moved to Paris shortly after World War II, and it was there that René made an important career decision at the age of six. When his school put on a musical performance for the parents, little René was given the honor of conducting his classmates in a rendition of “Do You Know the Muffin Man?”. When the performance was over, René took a bow, and, knowing that he was not the real conductor, imagined that he had been acting. He decided then and there that he wanted to be an actor. After leaving Paris, the Auberjonois family moved into an Artist’s Colony in upstate New York.
At an early age, René was surrounded by musicians, composers and actors. Among his neighbors were Helen Hayes, Burgess Meredith and John Houseman, who would later become an important mentor. Houseman gave René his first theater job at the age of 16, as an apprentice at a theater in Stratford, Connecticut. René would later teach at Juilliard under Houseman. René attended Carnegie-Mellon University and studied theater completely, not only learning about acting but about the entire process of producing a play. After graduating from CMU, René acted with various theater companies, including San Francisco’s American Conservatory Theater and Los Angeles’ Mark Taper Forum. In 1969, he won a role in his first Broadway musical, “Coco” (with Katharine Hepburn), for which he won a Tony Award.