Everybody and His Brother

Let's talk about the guy in the top bunk--the one who always borrowed your bike without permission and who embarrassed the hell out of you the first time you brought a girl home. You know, the kid who always insisted that it was his turn to get that last piece of chocolate cake.

Of all the complicated relationships that make up a typical family, there's something special about brothers. At once combative and loving, often equally competitive and supportive, for most of us it's the relationship that defines our friendships with other men for years to come. And yet few brothers fall into any logical pattern. Some end up seeing each other only at family funerals; others are constant companions for life. While most of us drift away from our parents toward independence, there's no formula that seems universal for brothers.

As a way of deciphering this most intense of male friendships, we asked a group of famous siblings--some of them as noted for their feuds as for anything else--to reflect on what it is to have, and to be, a brother. And despite the fact that their answers vary widely--not only from family to family but often within families as well--you'll find that much of what they say will strike a familiar chord in all of us who harbor that secret fear that if we could ever get Mom to fess up, she'd admit that we weren't the one she liked best.

The Stallones (entertainers)

Sylvester, 39: When things started disappearing from my room--shoes, sneakers, baseball gloves, everything--I knew I was not alone. I usually took it out on Frank physically. We were always fighting like cats and dogs.

The meanest thing he ever did to me started this way: He dumped an entire quart of vanilla ice cream into a bowl and started eating it with a huge soupspoon. I had a hot temper, but I figured this time, I was going to be nice. So I asked him real nice, "Can I share your ice cream?" He had this fetish about anyone touching his food. I touched it. So he yelled, "You diseased it!" and flipped it into my face. I hauled off and hit him, broke my hand on his head and fell down, so he started hitting me with a wooden clog. Meanwhile, my father took the ice cream into the living room and ate it. We both ended up in the hospital that night--me with a broken hand, Frank with throbbing headaches and a mild concussion. This happened when I was about 21.

We're equally hotheaded. But he's irrational. I'm rational.

I suppose I'm more like Mom and Frankie is more like Dad. We both have our mother's bizarre sense. Whatever physical endurance we have, we got from our father--that and his straightforward attitude. Frankie has my mother's face. I have my father's face. It's like the body parts were put in a blender and mixed up for both of us.

But he got away with more; there's no question of that. I was a heavy bag with eyeballs. I was difficult in school. Frankie just never went. He never tagged after me much when we were kids. Still, I would get him into trouble by making him my partner in crime--staying out late, getting into fights. He would go out and buy a snake. I got the idea to take it and put it into the swimming pool during a convention for school-teachers.

We never really went after the same girl--maybe the same type. I remember once he got mad at me for going after his friend's girl. I said, "Well, she ain't married to him." He said, "Yeah, but I'm your brother."

Now we're pretty close; we talk about five times a week. He still sees (continued on page 191) Brothers (continued from page 119) me the same way: as the big brother. I prefer being older. I like finding out things firsthand and being able to tell him about them. It must be the writer's side of me. the fact that he doesn't listen is OK.

Frank, 35: We're close, but we fight a lot. He's overbearing and I'm overbearing. So if I say, "What do you think of this project?" he puts on his director's hat and says, "Well, I think you should do this and that." I say, "All I asked you is your opinion, not to take over the whole thing."

We fought horribly when we were kids. When he got punished, he would take it out on me. One day, we were coming home from Catholic school wearing our uniforms. I was messing around under a bridge around a construction site and crawled inside one of the big steel drums. And he wouldn't let me out of it for an hour. He was on the top of the bridge, throwing rocks at me. He was hitting the can on the side, and it made a lot of noise. Every time I stuck my head out, a rock would come flying by. I was about seven, and it was scary.

We shared the same room. He always got the top bunk and loved to get up in the morning and step on my head.

My brother never thought about being an actor back then. I don't think he really knew what he wanted to do. He took one of those aptitude tests--it said he would be a good plumber. My mother flipped. she had her sights set on him being President or something like that.

Critics who come down on what they call nepotism are ridiculous. Everything is nepotism. Look at Warner Bros. Look at the Zanucks. Anybody who becomes successful is going to give his family the first crack. Why should he give it to a stranger? But if you're not good, you're out.

What's the best thing about being the younger brother? Your brother's older girlfriends think, Oh, isn't he cute. You're like a smaller version of the guy they're going out with. That meant I wouldn't get beat up when his girlfriends were around.

The Gatlins (country-music artists)

Larry,37: I write the songs. I'm the lead singer, and I'm sure it's difficult for my brothers sometimes. Harmony is an integral part of what we do, but sometimes I step out and sing the lead. It must be chafing at times to see that I'm recognized when we walk into restaurants because I'm the one who sits with Mr. Carson and talks. Both Steve and Rudy handle it very well.

I'm the leader as far as the music goes. Steve is more reserved. He handles the business on the daily basis and really digs helping with the logistics and planning. Rudy? I don't know what he does.

People figure mothers like the oldest best. I remember something my mom once said that related to that. Brother Steve had just become a member of the church, but Rudy was still not old enough. After Steve was baptized, Rudy complained, "Why can't I join? Don't you love me as much as Steve and Larry?" Mom said, "Rudy, I love you just as much, just not as long." That's one of the good things about being the oldest... she loved me longest.

I guess I'm like my daddy. We're both very headstrong to the point of being downright obstinate. There is a kind of doggedness, a West Texas work ethic, that I also carry over from my father. Rudy is getting more like Dad but takes after Mother's side of the family physically in that he is tall and gaunt. Rudy is a free spirit. He's not married, but he holds nightly auditions. He thinks differently from Steve and me. We're married and responsible for our families.

All three of us have our differences. Our common thread of music and the feelings we have for one another keep us from knockdown, drag-out fights. We don't visit one another a lot, but we do spend a lot of time together, competing in sports, meeting in the office four or five times a week.

Steve, 34: I take care of the business: dealing with promoters, signing contracts and deciding where we work or what TV shows we're going to be on. I don't know how I got that role. It kind of fell on me after our first Grammy in 1976. I put the band on the road and I became the bus driver, the sound man and the road manager. I'm the most levelheaded, the most consistent. Larry calls me Gibraltar.

Larry didn't get away with much. He was the front runner and the oldest. Rudy in his early years was very stubborn, and he still is set in his ways. He got away with more later, being the youngest. My parents were broken in and maybe a little less strict with him. Still, in those very early years, as a baby, he was the one in the cookie jar a little more often than us, and he got his ass busted more. And me, well, the middle child always feels deprived.

Larry and I were usually the ones who got Rudy in trouble. Naturally, you have to pick on the littlest brother. I remember one Christmas we talked Rudy, who was four or five, into opening his Christmas present before Christmas. Dad and Mom were out of the house and we told him we'd wrap it back up so they'd never know. Just as he got it unwrapped, Mom and Dad got home. It was a brand-new cowboy belt and Dad used it on him. We said, "Hey, we tried to tell him not to open it!"

When we're on the road, we try our best to stay away from one another. I think that's one of the reasons we're successful and get along so well. When you see your brother on the stage and are forced together through occupation, you need room to be individuals. When we stay at hotels, I ask them to put us on different floors if possible. Lots of times, we don't see one another until we walk on stage. I like eating steak--I love steak--but not three times a day.

Rudy, 33: Yeah, I'm the most stubborn. It's my basic nature. I've had to live with it for 33 years now. I guess I worry more about things.

Following them in school was pretty tough on me. Larry and Steve were both outstanding in athletics. I wasn't. They were really good in the classroom. I wasn't. Everyone said, "You're not like your brothers." I would answer, "You're right."

When you're a kid, you look up to other kids. I wanted to be just like them, and both were equally influential.

Steve's very methodical, intense, the type to say, "This is the way we're going to do it, this is why, now let's go do it." Steve takes care of the business. Larry is the writer, more sensitive. He is gentle at times. But all of us have our moments when we come across as real hard. When we're shot at, we shoot back.

They say I'm the most like Mom. I don't know why they say that, except for our physical appearance. Larry and Steve took more after Dad. My mom was always the rock--real steady through the years. I like to think I'm pretty steady.

My brothers married in their early 20s. I think they have lovely wives. In fact, they married girls like Mom. As soon as a find one like them, maybe I'll settle down.

The Mahres (skiers)

Phil, 28 (he is four minutes older): There are a lot of twins who hamper each other's performances because of the way they compete. However, Steve and I used that sibling rivalry as a positive thing. If one did well, the other did better. We had no hang-ups about it. I wasn't competitive with him, I competed with him. There's a difference. He prodded me into testing myself. I always felt if he could do it, I could do it. It wasn't a matter of proving it to him but of proving it to myself.

We always felt we were each other's best coaches. Our skiing is similar but not the same. We were always the first to see what the other needed to work on, and we always studied the courses together before competitions. The person who went down the slope first would radio back information to the one on the top. There are very few people on the world circuit who do that. And even if they share some information at the bottom, they don't communicate the way we do. I remember Marc Girardelli from Austria overheard us once and said, "I thought I understood English until I listened to the Mahres." We have our own language. When we were building a house together with a team member, Johnny Buxman, the three of us would look at a blueprint and then Steve and I might say two words or maybe just exchange glances and walk off in separate directions, both knowing what we were going to do. Johnny would be left standing there, scratching his head.

We don't spend as much time together anymore; maybe we see each other once or twice a week. But you never lose that ability to communicate. I don't think much about ESP between twins. When we're together, we'll be thinking the same way, but I don't think there's anything psychic.

My wife, Holly, is a twin and her grandmother was a twin as well, so I guess there's a good chance we might have twins someday. What would I tell them about being a twin? That you have to be aware of yourself as an individual. But there's nothing bad about being a twin. I enjoy it.

Steven, 28: Being twins and skiing together has always been a tremendous advantage. In White Pass, Washington, there were not many kids to play with except my brothers. Without Phil, it would have been pretty boring; I don't know if I would have taken all the time to ski. We used to do our homework on the way home and ski until dinner.

Sibling competition does have something to do with our achievements. If you don't have someone to make you try harder, you just get by. If I won, he would try harder and then I would try harder. When we got to the world-class level, there were a lot of others to try to beat. Still, we always compete with each other, too.

In the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, he beat me, but it might have turned out a different way. He was willing to get on the radio and tell me what to do to beat him. That's the way we've worked for the past four years. If I don't win, he'd better.

Our relationship is more like best friends than brothers, almost. We enjoy being together, and envy is nonexistent. We've always palled around together. There was only one time when we fought, at 12 or 13. I don't know what it was about, but I hit him in the face and he started crying. It was the last time it came to fists.

We were kind of momma's boys when we were young. If Mom was carrying one of us, she had to carry the other one, too. I guess we were jealous of Mom's attention.

The only time we ever switched identities was in 1982. I had won the world championship in Austria. A guy named Bibbo was giving a speech after dinner. I placed an overseas call to my wife, and when the call came through, we were at dinner. I had been talking to her for about 40 minutes when Phil came in and said, "Bibbo wants to give his speech, but he won't until you come down." I wanted to keep talking to my wife, so Phil put on my shirt and medal and sunglasses and went back so Bibbo would give his speech.

Back in school, I think most kids thought of us as the Mahre brothers. We had a lot of nicknames--Wus and Pus, the Hair Bear Bunch. I have no idea why. At home, we were Steamer and Beamer.

We enjoy doing most things together, and if I'm doing something with other friends and he's not there, it's kind of empty. Ten days apart seems long. I know him as well as any living person, but I don't know what goes on inside. I know how he thinks on skis, but what he thinks off by himself, I have no idea.

The Keaches (actors)

Stacy, 44: When James was born, my grandmother told me I had a baby brother as fat as a little butterball. We had a family celebration in which I drank my first Coca-Cola. I was very happy. I remember feeling, Thank God. Now I don't have to go through it alone.

I was always absolutely bossy. I remember taking my brother into the back yard when I was in high school and he was coming out of grammar school and teaching him the rudiments of football. He went on to become an excellent athlete, far beyond my ability.

Later, after I finished Yale, I was called back as a lecturer in residence. The irony was that my brother became one of my students. We roomed together in New Haven for a year. We had fun, but it was a difficult time for us both. He was struggling for independence. There was always an enormous stack of dirty dishes--literally up to the ceiling.

There are always things brothers feel guilty about. When he was very young, I loved to play with him. Once, I dressed him up like a king and made a platform with a couple of chairs--one on top of another--for him to sit on as his throne. He fell and cut up his chin. I remember feeling very guilty.

The best thing about having a brother is the camaraderie and companionship. The worst thing, I suppose, is the responsibility if you are the older one.

We got each other into trouble, but once, he got us out of trouble. I was 16 and was driving with a friend. James was ten and was along with us. We were throwing snowball oranges at trash cans, and suddenly a burly sheriff pulled us over and got out of the car, snarling, "How would you boys like to spend the night in jail?" My brother began to cry. The cop felt sorry for him, so he let us go.

The Wright Brothers was our first film together, and we had the chance to experience those two characters in a special way. In it, there is a wonderful scene that Jimmy and I wrote. The two are playing checkers and the older brother says, "Do I intimidate you? Even though I'm bossy and overbearing, and sometimes I give the impression of not being compassionate, I really do value your love." It's a very personal scene and one of the best. I think in many ways it reflects our fraternal relationship. There is also one scene where we get into a fight on the beach. He gets the upper hand and threatens to hit me because, suddenly, he realizes that he is stronger. But he catches himself and comes back to earth.

My brother and I always keep in touch, either by letter or by phone, whenever we are separated for a length of time. But my incarceration [in London, for cocaine possession] was definitely the most intense corresponding period of our relationship. I was allowed to write only one letter a week and receive one two-hour visit every 28 days. But I could get all the mail that came, and my brother wrote me terrific letters. He was extremely supportive: He looked after my parents, kept the home fires burning, wrote a lot and came to visit. He even offered to find the guys who had set me up.

Outside of one visit every 28 days, the only contact you have in the rather grim setting of prison is letters. I really appreciated getting them. My brother's son also wrote and sent me his latest work, which I used to adorn the walls of my cell.

James, 38: I got away with more, but I also didn't get as much. I had to take my turf, because his turf had already been covered. Imagine following the guy. My mother said lightning struck the house when my brother was born. I make jokes, but she did say that. And I always got the impression that's what happened.

Being younger is harder. You're always following in someone's footsteps. In acting class at Grant High School, the teacher announced that she had seen this wonderful actor in Ashland, Oregon. She opened up the brochures, and there was my brother. It was hard to get up after that. When I started out in the business, people were always saying "I saw your brother in...." You wonder if it's ever going to stop. After a while, you begin to realize it's actually a compliment to you. But that's one of the barriers you have to overcome.

One of the insights I gained while working on The Long Riders, though, was that the older brother always worries that the younger is gaining on him. Maybe this guy is coming on. But I'll always be Stacy's kid brother. At 70, he'll say, "Come on, kid."

The Everlys (singers)

Don, 49: Phil and I have been singing together all our lives. When we were kids, I started singing harmony with my father. When Phil's voice matured, his was higher, so he started harmony. We've got a good voice blend. If I change melody, Phil changes right with me. Being related helps immensely as far as the sound goes. It has been a tradition in country music that family members sing together.

In the Forties and Fifties, we were growing up singing on radio. The kids at school were not even aware we were doing this. Our radio life was kind of a secret life, basically.

Both of us were late bloomers. We never got into trouble and were always the cleanest-cut kids. I didn't say "Hell" until I was 20. From then on, I guess, I made up for lost time. I am two years older than Phil. I don't think I was the typical older brother, but I tried to be dominating musically. Being older meant I had to break the ice. Our parents were very strict, and it's harder for the first. I couldn't go out late, anyway, because I had to be up at five A.M. for the radio show. Our dates could always stay out later than we could. Phil was on the track team and the basketball team and got better grades. I was an average student, because it didn't interest me. We had morning shows and noon shows, and there really wasn't much time for a social life. Ours was not a normal childhood.

We're not very alike. It's important to spend time away from each other. When we broke up, we didn't think we would get back together again for a long time.

So we became estranged. Time can pass very quickly. You can never go back and make up for those years. So my advice to anyone who hasn't spoken to his brother for a long time is, call him up. I called Phil. I was the one who said, "Don't call me," so I figured it was my turn.

Phil, 47: I wasn't planning on stopping performing. That's something Donald felt, and the need was greater for him than it was for me. I have a tendency, partly because I'm the younger brother, to flow along. It was an awfully big factory to close down. It took a lot of balls, and Donald's got them.

I think I'm a little less serious than Donald. He was always kind of out front, having to do the heavy lifting.

When we were on the radio in Knoxville, Tennessee, I was going with a girl whose brother was in Donald's class. Donald was fairly fast with the ladies. In those days, we had ducktails, which could scare a parent real good. Anyway, she broke off with me because her brother had told her parents that Donald was real fast with the girls and it was a bad idea for her to be going out with me. I was not old enough to have a reputation, so I got his.

We were both raised very strictly, and I think Donald got the brunt of it. Mother was always on his case. I probably got away with more. I was a great one for slipping and sliding--you know, hiding in the shadows. I could watch the arguments he got into and see which way the wind was going to blow on a given issue and know how I would be standing in two years.

He was never bossy, more of a live-and-let-live guy. When we were young, we shared a folding sofa. It was an interesting way to grow up--with his feet in my face.

We always had separate friends. That's another thing about singing together. You're pictured in everyone's mind as having that ultracloseness. But it wasn't like that. And when we were young, like when I started dating, I wouldn't want to hang out with Donald. What kind of chances does a 14-year-old guy have getting a girl with a 16-year-old guy hanging around? I had no chance if Don was there. Zero.

We've spent more time together than most brothers I know. Even if Don and I had been running the Everly Brothers Deli, there would have been pressures. But if you add to that the artistic aspect, there's even more pressure.

Don sang the lead. The harmony can't dictate what the lead is going to do or how many twirls you're going to put in it. I always understood, though, the value of what I contributed.

We always agreed on the songs that became hits. It wasn't a matter of thinking or talking it over; you felt it or you didn't.

How did we get back together? We started talking on the phone. I was in Europe and stopped in to see him in Tennessee afterward. It was up to him to end our long separation and up to me to be receptive. Even if we didn't wind up working together, just getting together would have been the rightest thing we could have done, because, you know, something could happen--like you could die. It's that simple. We went to lunch together and it was like being on the good side of the relationship instead of where we were at the very end. And it was fun. He's very funny, you know. So we spent the lunch laughing.

The first time our voices joined in song together after those ten years was in a rehearsal hall we hired in Nashville. It was Bye Bye Love. Without tooting our horn, we both sing very well separately. But the first few notes that we sang together were the most fun, the most revealing of revelations. It was a little bit like jumping into a pool without sticking your toe in first.

Before we went out on the stage at Albert Hall for our reunion concert, I guess it felt like two parachutists fixing to jump off a plane. We didn't really say anything to each other. What can you say?

The Quaids (actors)

Randy, 35: My first memory of Dennis is when they brought him home from the hospital. I remember seeing him in a little bassinet and experiencing my first pangs of jealousy. Until then, I had been the only child and was used to getting all the attention. I remember watching my mother nursing him and feeling jealous because I wasn't able to nurse. We had this awful old nanny, Miss Box. Mother was always sending me out of the room to Miss Box, which upset me. I got Miss Box, the ultimate hag, and he got Mom.

Dennis got away with more while we were growing up. My parents were very cautious with me, because I was the first. I didn't get to go out on dates until I was 16 or 17. Then Dennis came along, and at 14 or so he was allowed to go out. He was always considered the baby of the family and got preferential treatment.

Of course, being older gave me a tremendous advantage when we were growing up, because I could beat the hell out of him and make his life miserable for the first 16 years. It gave me a nice thrill.

The meanest thing I ever did to him was hitting him so hard once, he didn't speak to me for four days. He told on me, of course. I was about 14 then.

The meanest thing he ever did to me was becoming successful.

I got to Hollywood first. He showed up about three years later. I wanted him to (continued overleaf) change his name, but he wouldn't. Despite that, I did help him in any way I could, introduced him to my agent and all that.

For a time, he lived next door to me. It really pissed me off at first. He was the first one to buy a house, because he had all this money coming in. So he bought a house right in front of me. I had to grow up sharing a bedroom with him till I was 16. I was trying to get away from him, living a separate life, and he went and bought a house right next door.

The best thing about having a brother is having another man you are really close to, somebody you feel understands. The worst thing about having a brother has pretty much passed for me. That's sharing the love, the parents and the toys. He was always after my toys. We had a lot of fights. I used to love hearing him scream, "Ma--Randy is bothering me."

I'd say Mother liked Dennis better when we were growing up. But I think she likes me the best now.

Dennis, 30: Mom really likes me best, to tell you the truth. Mom will say she likes both of us equally, of course. But the younger gets the better end of the stick in some ways. He gets to do all the stuff the older one didn't, because the parents are cooled down by the time he comes along.

I'm more like Dad than Randy is. I even look like my father, so they say. Maybe Randy's more like Mom. It's hard to say. He has some of her qualities.

What I remember best about our childhood was his being bigger than I was. Now he's 6'5". He's always been a big guy. And we always had a really good relationship. We went through all the sibling stuff, like him torturing me when I was a kid, us nagging at each other. But we've remained very close for some reason. I think we're closer than most brothers, especially ones who are in the same business.

We're also a rarity among acting brothers. Usually, brothers are up for the same roles because they happen to look alike. Randy and I are never up for the same roles, so that kind of competition is out.

I think the brothers who can fight with each other are the closest, as long as you never let it get so bad that you walk away and say "I'll never talk to you again. "Not that it hasn't crossed my mind. But we always come back together.

I actually started acting in junior high, though Randy will contend I wasn't really serious. Randy was the first one to say, "I want to be an actor." I really wonder if it had anything to do with my becoming an actor, too. Both Randy and I had a wonderful acting teacher named Cecil Picket. Randy led me to it, but if it weren't for Pickett, I'd be repairing lawn mowers.

My brother is away and returns tomorrow. I'll see him then. Afterward, he's going off again for four months. I miss him when I don't see him a lot.

The Hineses (actors, dancers)

Maurice, 42: The last thing we did together was Eubie! on Broadway in 1978. Then, when Francis Coppola was working on The Cotton Club, Gregory, who was already in the cast, called me and said, "You've got to see the script. It's so much like our life."

In the movie, we break up our act as brothers and almost come to blows. It happened that way in real life. After 25 years of performing together, we realized we had to break up our own act to save ourselves as brothers. Musically, we were off in different directions. He wanted to go into a white rock-'n'-roll kind of sound; I wanted to go more into theater. When we were working as Hines, Hines and Dad, everything was done for us. Neither of us knew much, but we knew we had to break up. In the movie, we do the same thing, and we reunite dancing. In real life, we reunited in Eubie! We danced and then hugged and kissed each other, because we loved dancing together. In the movie, it happens the same way.

Breaking up was something we both needed to do to become men. We were fighting all the time. We were not individuals, we were the Hines brothers. When we broke up, he wound up selling guitar strings in Venice while I was selling shirts in New York. There were no jobs for us in the business. For me, it was very difficult. It was like Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. I played the straight man. It never occurred to anyone that I was talented.

My first memory of Gregory is of the day my mother brought him home from the hospital, put him on the bed and said, "This is your baby." He looked so beautiful, this big, fluffy thing. People often ask me, "Didn't you ever resent your brother?" No, I didn't. I just wanted him to be happy. I always felt I was supposed to protect him. Now he tries to protect me. I'm a bit too honest for my own good. He has already called me about this interview to warn me to be careful. Mom, too.

We shared the same bedroom, but we never fought much. I remember he used to get his way a lot. He was very pretty. I was not pretty. Perhaps I'm being too reveling, but I'm going to tell you something I've never talked about before. You see, in black families of that type, to look white was a bonus. My mother's side of the family was Portuguese, and my brother took after her. I looked like my father's side, with black features. I realized that very early, and it was confusing to me as a child--somehow, my brother would get certain things because of the way he looked. But we were the only children, and my mother loved us both equally. She didn't react to her sons the way the rest of the family did. After all, she had married my father, and he didn't have white features. My father was a big, black, good-looking man, and she loved him, too.

I was always the kid who did what he was told. I took out the garbage, walked the dogs, made the bed. Gregory went to the park. I was always in the house, doing my homework. I got better grades until Mom cracked down on him. But when Gregory gets interested in something, he really throws himself into it.

He used to get into more trouble than I did. Sometimes, like when he wasn't home by dark, I would try to cover for him. When we were doing The Cotton Club, I found myself in that same position. I'd be walking around and they'd say, "Where's your brother?" It was like we were little kids again. I was always there on time, and Gregory always came late but was so charming no one cared.

We don't talk often on the phone. We don't hang out together. But we live three blocks from each other. We always seem to gravitate to each other.

Gregory, 39: We performed for our first 25 years together as Hines, Hines and Dad, and most of those years were very enjoyable. But once I got to be an adult and started to form my own feelings and values about working, it started breaking down. We wanted to go in different directions creatively. I had been working my whole life, most of the time doing what everybody else thought best. It's not that I was ordered to do anything, but everything was a group agreement. I wanted to make my own decisions, and because Maurice and I were disagreeing so much at this point, our relationship as brothers was deteriorating. I knew no way to save it other than to split up as artists.

Dancing with Maurice is a magical experience that's hard to put into words. It's always a pleasure because of the foundation we built. We know each other so well. I can rely on him and have tremendous confidence in him. I've danced with a lot of people who are really talented, but it's not the same experience.

One reason I can enjoy working with him now is that I know it's not going to be all the time. We think very differently as artists. And if you're an artist who works live, you especially want to make your own decisions. That's what happened with us--we both wanted to do it our way. But once we split up, we became much closer as brothers, and that makes me happy.

I always got away with more. Maurice was really a good boy, into listening. It may have been that I was more curious. Maurice got the better grades. When I was eight, I saw an incredible performance by an improvisational dancer and decided that was what I wanted to do. I spent my free time trying to make up steps. Even thought we had an act, I didn't enjoy practicing the same steps over and over.

When we were growing up, my outgoing nature worked the act. I was spontaneous on stage and would make faces, and so on, which put me in the role of being the comedian. Early on, Maurice encouraged me and responded as the straight man, helping set things up. It was never planned or discussed. I think Maurice felt overlooked in those formative years. People would come backstage and talk mostly about me. In our business, the straight man goes unseen if he does his job really well. I remember we were kids when Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis split up, and often we would be compared to them. So when Dean Martin did real well in the movies, Maurice felt encouraged. But not until we split up as an act did he concentrate on himself. It seems like he was always concentrating on making me look good.

The Smotherses (comedians)

Tom, 48: One thing Dickie will never be is the older brother. There is a psychological edge when you have that little extra time on him. I've met a lot of twins, and I always ask, "Which is the older?" They always have an immediate answer--even though the difference is only a few minutes. Dickie can be the more dominant, but he can never be older.

I'm the businessman, the negotiator. In all other areas except the act itself, I take the typical old-brother role. But in the act, it's all turned around. The older brother should be the straight man.

Just like brothers do when they're kids, we still fight. It's not so much fighting as a constant, consistent disagreement on trivia. But the important thing is, we pull together when times get tough. In a crisis, we're always protective of each other.

I used to say, "If I had been an only child and God had lined up ten or 15 brothers for me to pick from, I wouldn't have chosen him." I'd probably choose someone the same as me.

When we were going through those fights with CBS in 1969, Dick was out racing automobiles in Sebring. He would check in with me on the big fight. He'd say, "Are you right? OK. Go ahead." That fight put us out of business for ten years. But never once did he say, "You blew the show." Once we commit ourselves, there is no second-guessing.

We're constantly being mixed up with each other when we're alone. People call him Tom and me Dick. But when we're together, they know our correct names. It's like we're not real unless we're together.

I thought I could be a stand-up comic by myself. But I've come to the conclusion after a lot of years that we're inexorably attached. Each of us will die being known as one of the Smothers Brothers. And that didn't seem so bad after a while.

Dick, 47: If you're a younger brother, you don't even think about it, because that's all you've ever been. I have no idea what it's like not to have a brother. Yet to me, it's a very personal thing. I'm always surprised when one of my kids calls the other one brother. It's like Tommy and me are the only ones.

As older brothers will do, Tommy takes on the leadership role, and sometimes, when he's not right and gets lost and doesn't know what to do, he has to deal with the frustration. The younger child, on the other hand, is used to letting the other one have his way, even when he thinks his own way is correct. Then, when things don't go right, he has the pleasure of being able to go, "Na-na-na-na-na." It's almost like going through life as a Monday-morning quarterback. Still, if I get into trouble, I want him to get me out of it.

I think Tommy is a little disappointed that he didn't make it in movies. It's a natural thing to want to make it on your own. He got discouraged too easily and quit too soon. When you're very successful in one area, it's sometimes harder to pick up another craft. And being a comedian doesn't automatically prepare you for film acting.

I encouraged him to keep on acting. I don't think there is anything either one of us could be successful at that the other one would be jealous of. I can't work alone. There is no market for single straight men. But I still want success for him. If it turned out he was very good in movies, maybe I'd be a producer. There's nothing wrong with nepotism.

The Carradines (actors)

David, 49: I never got to know Keith and Bobby until they were grown up. The center of the family sort of shifted to the brothers, half brothers and stepbrothers rather than our father [actor John Carradine]. There was no doubt that he was head of the family, but when he moved out of town and concentrated on his fourth wife, Keith and Bobby and I were in L.A., trying to make it in show business, so we palled around. In recent years, I've become the closest to Bobby. I took care of him the last few years he was in high school. He lived with me, and I would send him down to school on his bicycle every day.

Keith lived with me for a while. I had already been acting for a decade when he moved in. As a matter of fact, I used to move in and out of houses. And when I'd move out, I'd move Keith in. For a while we lived together, and then I thought he should strike out on his own. He really didn't want to, so I gave him my house. I thought he needed to be his own man, not have a big brother watching over him. I had to do the same thing with Bobby.

One time, I told Keith, "Stop asking me all these questions. Don't you understand I'm just making up the answers--just using logic? You can make up the answers yourself." And he actually took it to heart and walked out of my life. I hardly saw him for five or six years while he was building his own manhood.

Do I still play the paternal role? No longer. Keith is bigger than I am, and he has his stuff together. He's a family man and he has his finances together. He has a beautiful house out in Topanga, with lots of property. Bobby is more of a kid, but I couldn't say he asks me for advice.

Once, I came close to going after one of my brothers' girlfriends. Bobby and I didn't share the girl; it was actually after they broke up that I got sweet on her. It almost destroyed the brotherhood.

I don't see Keith enough. He's a really busy guy. He's got a new marriage, a young son, and his career is really breaking right now. And I'm as busy as hell. I don't have time for anything. Bobby lives just three blocks from me. We go up there and ride, talk about cars and motorcycles or play music.

Keith, 35: I have half brothers, full brothers, stepbrothers. It's incredibly complicated. I share a common mother and father with Bobby and Christopher [an architect]. I share a father only with David. And I share a mother only with Michael Bowen [an actor].

I feel very close to David, though not as close as we once were. I think that's because when I really got to know David, he was in his late 20s or early 30s and I was just passing from being a teenager into being a man.

It was in my last year in high school that I decided to look David up. I was basically a pretty straight, law-abiding kid. But I knew that David smoked grass, and this was something I wanted to know about. I figured, What better way to get a little grass and smoke some and see what it is than to find David? A friend and I went to his "pad"--that should be in quotes-- where we proceeded to have what we all thought was this incredibly bohemian, beatnik, hippie-type evening.

I found his stereo, looked through his records and picked out some Rachmaninoff. I thought that would impress him, because I knew he was into the classics. He made a funny face, said, "Let's play something else" and put on a Tim Buckley album. I suddenly realized how uncool I had been to put on classical music. I think at one point I said, "Hey, have you got any grass?" And he said, "Oh, do you want it?" I said, "Yeah, I was hoping we could get stoned or something." So he went rummaging around in the back yard and found a little bottle that was his stash, put it into a little pipe and we all lit up. This was so quintessentially late Sixties. We also were drinking a lot of wine, and within about an hour and a half I was puking in the back yard. I have very fond memories of that night.

As time went on, I became more comfortable and less concerned with impressing him. During the first three to five years that we spent a lot of time together, David had an incredible influence on the way I thought and the personality I was developing.

It carried on that way for some time. Then the inevitable occurred, and it became time for the protégé to rebel against his mentor. There was a period when I decided that David was full of shit and didn't know anything. Anything he said, I would argue with.

I still feel very close to David, and I love him so much. I wish we saw more of each other. The best time we've all had was working together on The Long Riders, because we could see each other every day.

Bobby was always my kid brother, and there were times when I loved being the big brother. I would protect him from bullies, but then he would get into my stuff, and that would make me nuts. I remember once when I was about eight and he was about three, he helped give me my first lesson in karma. My friend had a barlow knife that I wanted desperately, so I shoplifted one from a hardware store. One day, it turned up missing. I browbeat Bobby until he admitted he had taken it and was scared that I would find out, so he hid it. I said, "Where did you hide it?" He said, "I put it in a gopher hole out there" and pointed to the pastures. We were living in Calabasas, and there were about five acres of pasture with probably a million gopher holes. He had no idea which one he had put it in.

I remember when Bobby decided to be an actor, I was jealous that he was going to do the same thing that I was doing. Bobby's range of talents is so great that there were a lot of other things he could do. When he started, I was worried that he was choosing it not because that was what he really wanted but because David and I were doing it and it was the family thing to do. But I'm so proud of him now.

Bobby, 31: As the youngest, I had nowhere to go but to get punished for shit they did. In our house, we had the cry test. If you were accused and didn't cry, you were not guilty. But because I was always getting accused and was real sensitive, I would cry even if I weren't guilty. I was actually a pretty good boy.

It's not a disadvantage being younger, because you can watch your older brothers fuck up and avoid their fuck-ups. You get more of a chance to get it right, more time to learn. But experience is the best teacher.

My first memories of David are of his coming in and out of our house, but my first solid recollection was when I was 16. I had seen him on the TV series Shane and was star struck. I was real impressed with David, and I still am.

Both David and Keith were all for my being an actor. David, in particular, had a lot to do with my decision. I was reluctant to be an actor, because I didn't think the profession could stomach another acting Carradine. People would figure, "They can't all be good. One of them has to have no talent." I didn't want that pressure.

Going to Hollywood High School and living with David were great times--if you can imagine David Carradine writing notes asking teachers to excuse my tardiness. He really would do all those things--except the notes would be written on the back of a canceled check or something. But by the time I was 18, I was out on my own and writing my own notes.

The woman David is with now is one I once dated. The first few weeks were tough. But, ultimately, the truth is, they get along great and I love them together.

I really like being seen with David or Keith. When people recognize them and discover I'm there, too, I get to bathe in a little bit of their light. But any time any of us go out together, it's like, "We're the Carradine boys--you better lock up your daughters." That's the feeling, even though most of us are monogamous right now. It's a feeling of swashbucklingness, and it feels really good. When I'm with my brother--any one of them--I feel twice as dangerous. And when there are three of us, we're three times as dangerous. I fucking love having all these brothers.

Brothers: The Adventure Begins

Keach, Carradine, Quaid, Everly, Hines, Mahre, Smothers, Gatlin, Stallone--some famous siblings tell how being brothers is anything but blood simple