Cubby O'Brien

Cubby O'Brien
Born	Carl Patrick O'Brien July 14, 1946 (1946-07-14) (age 65) Burbank, California
Years active	1955 - today
Spouse	Marilyn Miller (1967-1976) 1 child Terry Wilemon (1978-1999) Holly ? (2002-today)

Carl Patrick O'Brien (born July 14, 1946), who generally goes by the nickname of "Cubby", is a professional American drummer, and a former child actor, who is best known for having been a Mouseketeer.

Early life

O'Brien was the third son of musician Haskell "Hack" O'Brien, a well-known drummer for several big band era ensembles. When he was an infant, his mother thought he resembled a bear cub, and tagged him with his lifelong nickname. He has two older brothers, Haskell O'Brien, Jr., a trumpet player, and Warren O'Brien, also a drummer.^[1]

Although born in Burbank, O'Brien grew up in the Los Angeles suburb of Shadow Hills, California between Sun Valley and Sunland. He began studying music at the Carl Babcock School of Music from age five, and later performed with the Roger Babcock Dixieland Band at charity events and for local television. He would eventually graduate in 1962 from Hollywood Professional School, where he was president of his class.

Career

O'Brien, like Annette Funicello, was personally selected to audition for The Mickey Mouse Club by Walt Disney, in the spring of 1955. Disney had been alerted to him by a staff member, who caught his live performance at a charity gala.^[2]

Though he had little prior experience in singing or dancing, O'Brien was placed on The Mickey Mouse Club's first-string "Red Team" right from the start. He quickly picked up enough dance skills to perform in musical numbers, though his solo performances remained centered around his drums. He remained with the show for all three seasons (1955–1958) of original programming, and after filming stopped, went on live-performance tours with other Mouseketeers to Australia in 1959 and 1960.

Following Disney, he joined the Lawrence Welk organization for two years, having performed with the "Little Band", doing guest bits on the maestro's show, as well as other television series. After graduating from high school, Cubby started touring with Spike Jones, playing show tunes and dance music with the formerly manic bandleader's final group. He then played for Ann-Margret in her live performances, and in the late sixties returned to television as the sometime on-camera drummer for CBS's The Carol Burnett Show.

O'Brien also acted as Music Director for LA touring companies of the Broadway hits Hair and Oh, Calcutta! in the early seventies, and often fulfilled the same role for other engagements where his primary responsibility was drumming.

Beginning in 1973, O'Brien played drums for The Carpenters during tours, through the early eighties. Karen Carpenter usually played them herself on recordings, but for live performances sometimes needed a substitute, so she could sing. The two drummers became quite close, in a platonic, professional sense, with O'Brien introducing Karen Carpenter to drumming-legend Buddy Rich.^[3]

O'Brien was a contestant on the ABC game show The Big Showdown in the mid-1970s, winning $5,000 for rolling "Show Down" during the timed dice roll round.

In 1980, O'Brien reunited with his fellow Mouseketeers for a television special, in which he sang and danced, and, of course, played drums. He also joined some of these same Mouseketeers for live shows on fall weekends at Disneyland during the early 1980s.

Since the eighties, O'Brien's career has predominated around performing for Broadway productions, as well as for live shows by performers like Bernadette Peters. He based himself out of New York City instead of the West Coast for many years, though he has since moved back.

Personal life

O'Brien has been married three times, and has one adult daughter. His first wife, Marilyn Miller, was a vocalist with the Good Time Singers, whom he met while touring together with Spike Jones. Their daughter, Alicia O'Brien, was born in 1971. The couple divorced in 1976.

Two years later, O'Brien married Terry Wilemon, whom he met in Las Vegas while touring with the Carpenters.^[4] He relocated from New York City to her hometown of Dallas, but after twenty years together, they parted in 1999.

O'Brien and his current wife, Holly, have been together since 2002. They recently moved from New York City to the Pacific Northwest.

He now lives in Amboy, Washington.

Filmography

• Westward Ho, the Wagons! (1956) ... as Jerry Stephen

Television credits

• The Spade Cooley Show: 3 episodes (1954) ....as guest drummer
• Where's Raymond?: 1 episode (1955) ....as guest drummer
• Disneyland: 3 episodes (1955–1957) ....as Mouseketeer Cubby
• The Mickey Mouse Club: series regular (1955–1958) ....as Mouseketeer Cubby
• The Lawrence Welk Show: unknown episodes (1958–1959) ....as guest drummer and singer
• Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater: "The Man from Yesterday" (1960) ....as Ted Duncan
• The Wonderful World of Color: "The Mickey Mouse 40th Anniversary Show" (1968) ....as Mouseketeer Cubby
• The Carol Burnett Show crew (1967–1970) ....as drummer
• Tomorrow 1 episode (1975) ....as Cubby O'Brien
• The Wonderful World of Disney: "The Mouseketeer Reunion" (1980) ....as Mouseketeer Cubby
• The Mickey Mouse Club Story documentary (1995) ...as Cubby O'Brien

Broadway credits

• Annie Get Your Gun (1999–2001) ...as drummer
• Gypsy (2003–2004) ...as drummer
• The Producers (2001–2007) ...as drummer

References

1. ^ Walt Disney's Magazine, Vol II No 6, October 1957, pg 9
2. ^ Forever Hold Your Banner High, by Jerry Bowles, 1976, pg 96 ISBN 0-385-11622-5
3. ^ Modern Drummer, May 1983, "Karen Carpenter: A Drummer Who Sang" by Rod Fogarty
4. ^ The Dallas Observer, October 31, 1996, Music Section, "Not So Mickey Mouse" by Laurel Ornish

External links

• Cubby O'Brien at the Internet Movie Database
• Cubby O'Brien at the Internet Broadway Database
• Cubby O'Brien profile

Persondata
Name	Obrien, Cubby
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	July 14, 1946
Place of birth	Burbank, California
Date of death
Place of death