Rene Auberjonois
5 min read
René Marie Murat Auberjonois (June 1, 1940 - December 8, 2019) was an American actor of extraordinary range: a Tony Award-winning stage performer, a beloved television presence across four decades, and a prolific voice actor.1 He is perhaps best known to general audiences as the shape-shifting security chief Odo on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and as Clayton Endicott III on Benson. Ghostbusters fans will recognize him as a guest voice actor on Extreme Ghostbusters.
Early life and education
René Auberjonois was born in Manhattan, New York City, into a family of unusual distinction on both sides. His father, Fernand Auberjonois, was a Swiss-born foreign correspondent and Pulitzer Prize-nominated journalist.1 His mother, Princess Laure Louise Napoléone Eugénie Caroline Murat, descended directly from Napoleon Bonaparte's family: she was a great-great-granddaughter of Joachim Murat, one of Napoleon's marshals and later King of Naples, and of Napoleon's sister Caroline Bonaparte.1
After World War II the family relocated to Paris, where Auberjonois discovered his love of performing in a school play. The family later returned to the United States, settling in the artists' colony on South Mountain Road in Rockland County, New York, where their neighbors included Burgess Meredith and John Houseman.1 Auberjonois completed his secondary schooling in London while studying theater, then earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Carnegie Mellon University's School of Drama in 1962.2