Deep Space Days

A very happy birthday to Avery Brooks, who turns 59 today. Actor, director, activist, professor, and Cineville College distinguished alum, Brooks is perhaps best known as "Hawk," the character he played for three seasons on the TV version of Robert B. Parker's Spenser series (and for one season of a spin-off, A Man Called Hawk), as well as for his magisterial Benjamin Sisko, commander of the titular space station Deep Space Nine, on what Siskoid rightly calls the best of all possible Star Treks. But he's also done extensive work in theater (including turns in Othello, King Lear and A Midsummer's Night's Dream) opera (The Life and Times of Malcolm X) and the one-man show Paul Robeson, in addition to lending his voice to documentaries like Jazz, Frontline and Eyes on the Prize. "I never thought of myself as the sidekick," Brooks once said. "I've never been the side of anything. I just assumed that I was equal." Indeed-- happy birthday, Avery Brooks.