Before Andy Serkis, Fans Met This Underrated Take On Gollum in The Hobbit

Andy Serkis’ performance as Gollum in The Lord of the Rings films is of the greatest meetings of actor and character in modern movie history. His groundbreaking work expanded the idea of what motion-capture performances are capable of, bringing new dimension and subtlety to a role that mixed live action and CGI performance in ways that had never been seen before. In the two decades since the trilogy’s release, Serkis’ work as Gollum has become so iconic that it’s hard to imagine any other actor in the role.

And thus far, no other actor has tried. Serkis reprised the role in 2012’s The Hobbit, and will return to it once again in the upcoming The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, which he is also set to direct. But as great as Serkis’ take on the character is, he wasn’t the first actor to breathe life into Tolkien’s monster. Over 20 years before Serkis made his onscreen debut as Gollum, a very different take on the character graced television screens, one that deserves far more recognition than it gets.

Gollum’s Earliest Onscreen Incarnation

A Different Look Brings A Different Energy

Technically, the first onscreen adaptation of The Hobbit came in 1967, with a 12-minute short animated film by Gene Deitch, which was made mainly to hold onto the book’s film rights and bears little resemblance to the original story. The first full-length adaptation came ten years later, with the 1977 animated TV special produced by Rankin/Bass, the studio behind classics of yesteryear like 1967’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and 1974’s The Year Without a Santa Claus. It was something of a departure for the studio, who had mostly been known for their holiday-themed animated specials up to that point.

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Despite some generally positive reception at the time, the 1977 Hobbit is not held in very high esteem by Tolkien fans today. Condensing the book to fit just under 80 minutes meant that much of the story had to be cut out, and the era-appropriate folk/pop soundtrack by Glenn Yarbrough makes it feel pretty dated today. Still, the film manages to hit most of the high points of the novel, and the expressive animation from the Japanese studio Topcraft—whose animators would eventually split off and form the legendary Studio Ghibli—is expressive and detailed.

As in the novel, Gollum is a small but memorable part of The Hobbit, an obstacle for Bilbo Baggins to overcome on his hero’s journey. The animated version has a much more amphibian appearance than the creature later embodied by Serkis, with sagging skin, a wide mouth, and a hunched posture. While it might feel odd to those who only know the live-action version, it’s important to remember that there was no consensus on the look of the character at that point, and the animators had free reign to design the character as they saw fit.

Gollum’s Stellar Voice Performance

Brother Theodore Brought His A-Game

Of course, the visual design is only one aspect of this take on Gollum, and much of the success of this adaptation comes from the fantastic voice work of Theodore Gottlieb, better known as Brother Theodore. Gottlieb was a truly fascinating guy with an equally fascinating life story. After surviving the Holocaust and immigrating to America, he had a handful of screen appearances dating back to the late 1940s, but he was better known as a stage performer who had a regular show in New York City where he performed rambling, surreal monologues that he called “stand-up tragedy.” His shows attracted a cult following in the 1950s and ’60s, and he became a regular guest on Late Night with David Letterman in the ’80s, bringing a dose of his oddball sensibility to late night TV.

Brother Theodore’s voice for Gollum is quite a bit different from Serkis’ take, but equally effective, with a deep, raspy, almost syrupy quality. He brings a bit of the unhinged mania from his stage show into the role as Bilbo escapes with the ring, becoming delightfully deranged to show the depths of Gollum’s madness and the hold the ring has over him. Plenty of people who watched the movie as kids have said they were scared by Gollum, and a great deal of this power no doubt comes down to Brother Theodore’s wonderfully cracked vocal performance.

Serkis’ work as Gollum has cast such a long shadow over the character that it even stretches back to before he ever donned a motion capture suit, forcing even prior performances to be judged against it. The movie around it might have its problems, but the 1977 Gollum—and especially Brother Theodore’s voice work—deserve plenty of praise on their own. For those who hadn’t read the book, this Gollum might very well have been their first introduction to the character, and it should stand alongside the game-changing version that came after it.

The Hobbit

Release Date

November 27, 1977

Runtime

90 Minutes

Director

Jules Bass, Arthur Rankin Jr.

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