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Act I came in the 1970s. Teamed with then-wife and performing partner Lorene Yarnell, the pair brought mime -- and its essence of physical comedy and clowning -- to the peak of pop culture consciousness. But don't think being a mime means Robert Shields doesn't love to talk: During a recent chat, he would barely pause and rarely sit still, making our meeting feel more like a private performance. To make a point, he'd gleefully bolt out of his chair, demonstrate a physical comedy move, fold to the floor like an accordion, bounce up to tell a joke from his new stand-up comedy act and, ultimately, prime us for the first reunion of Shields & Yarnell in five years (eight since their last local performances as a duo) at Mingus Union High School in Cottonwood (June 10, 11 and 12), and the Scottsdale Center for the Arts (June 17).
In anticipation of this event, we sat down with Robert to talk about his show business career, and what to expect when he and Yarnell get together for these increasingly rare shows -- Lorene, now remarried, lives and teaches dance in Norway, Robert says, so their opportunites to perform together are limited. In addition, these pages include rare photos from Robert's personal archive, capturing hysterical historical moments from his accomplished career.
The streets of San Francisco were Robert Shields' first big stage. He had studied mime at Marcel Marceau's school in France, wound up in the Bay area and honed his act, which became a Union Square sensation. "When I was performing in the street, it was so magical," he recalls. "I can't explain it, it was just something that was really solid. And I got recognition for it right away."
One San Franciscan who caught the buzz was film director Francis Ford Coppola, who had just made The Godfather, and had returned to his hometown to shoot his brilliant if less well-known follow-up, The Conversation. The movie begins with a shot of Robert doing his act in Union Square. "He [Coppola] came down to talk to me and said, 'I'm going to put five cameras on the top of that building and I am going to shoot you.' Five cameras! The first thing he said to me is, 'How do you see all of this?' I thought that was amazing." But also an education. "I was kind of upset when we went to the actual opening of it in Oakland. We shot for four days; I thought it would be more of my act. I was 19 or 20, what did I know? It is a striking opening scene."
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The Conversation may be a cinematic landmark, but for Shields, a part on a long-forgotten TV special called Folderol was much more important: It was on the set of that production he met Lorene Yarnell. "We just fell in love instantly," he says. "We were both Aries; our father and mother were born on the same day; we're both left-handed. We have the same number of letters in both of our names. It was destiny.
"She is an incredible dancer and clown," Robert says, but "she didn't know mime at the time; I trained her. Mime is a very difficult art form, if you do it right. She worked at it for hours. We were probably among the first people to buy a video camera. It was an expensive piece of equipment, but we managed to get one for doing a gig. She worked every day watching tape [of me] to copy my moves."
The intense studies paid off. Eventually, Shields was working solo in Union Square, Yarnell took her new act to Ghirardelli Square in northern San Francisco, and the two of them worked out a duo act as well. (You can see vintage footage of their street performances in Robert Shields: Celebration of Imagination, a videotape sold in his stores or online at www.robertshields.com.) With legendary Bay area newspaperman Herb Caen as a booster, they became one of the city's top attractions. When they wed in Union Square (see photo at right), it was a huge event -- but only the beginning.
Long before American Idol, there was the Ted Mack's Original Amateur Hour. He was no Simon Cowell, but Mack also gave new talent a stage to show their stuff. Shields & Yarnell won first place on his talent show. "What Ted Mack did for us," Robert remembers, "was give us 3,000 bucks, which was like $30,000 then. We were a giant hit in San Francisco, but we figured we had to go to L.A. to really make it."
With the help of choreographer Toni Basil (probably best known to the public for her hit record "Mickey"), who knew Lorene from her days in L.A. as a dancer, the team got a job as part of a nightclub show called Doo-Dah Days. "It was about 1920s' gangsters, and we were in the show as an act in an old nightclub," Robert recalls. Talk show host Merv Griffin saw them there, and put them on his show, an appearance that led to a regular spot on singer Mac Davis' variety show. When that ended, Shields and Yarnell moved to the Sonny and Cher show, and got a shot at their own variety show in the summer of 1977 for CBS.
"It got into the top 10 first time out," Robert recalls. "The first six shows were a phenomenon." In particular, their robot characters, the Clinkers, made a lasting impression on pop culture. Breakdancers have credited it as inspiration for their "robot" moves. But TV is fickle, and as fast as the team became household names, their thunder was stolen by tough counterprogramming. "For the second season, they put us against Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley and we tanked. They cancelled us." Their then-manager suggested taking the act to Las Vegas, where they won two Entertainer of the Year awards, but, Robert suggests, lost the act's soul.
"We got $50-75,000 a week as headliners," Robert explains, "but it's not all yours," meaning various expenses for the show come out of that check. "We made a lot of money, but we also spent a lot of money." Then, there was the toll the schedule took on them, professionally and personally. "You do two shows a night, and after a while you're just feeling like you're hammering these things out."
Still, Vegas left Robert with some special memories. "Groucho Marx came to Vegas a lot to see us. We used to go to his house. He wouldn't talk much at first. We were at his house, and Lorene tells him, 'Groucho, we just love you,' and he's just there drinking soup, and looks up at her like, whatever, and I go, 'Yeah, you're OK. But your movies were strange, man. Why'd you let Zeppo sing?' And all of a sudden, Groucho looks at me and it's HAHAHAHAHAHA, and that was it. [Later], I start doing my act for him and he starts helping me, critiquing me. He was fantastic."
Robert even got to watch the classic Marx Brothers' comedy Duck Soup with the legend himself. "We go into this little theater, and I'm sitting there watching Duck Soup with Groucho! Then all of a sudden he starts to talk. He goes, 'See that guy? He's dead. See that one that just walked in? He's dead.' It wasn't anything like, 'Oh wow, that was so much fun. I remember that day, it was really hot and we had to do that take 10 times.' It was, 'He's dead, he's dead, he's dead, he's dead.' "
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Shields & Yarnell's last gasp came with a dream opportunity turned into a nightmare: Broadway Follies, a big theatrical extravaganza that closed after one performance. "When we went to Broadway, that was devastation," Robert says. "When you saw us live, it was just two people just doing all this magic. This elaborate show lost the magic of Shields & Yarnell. We fell off the pedestal. Our money dropped. People start making fun of mime. It happens to all kinds of acts. You have to reinvent yourself."
Robert eventually went back to the drawing board -- literally -- in Sedona. He decided to settle here, and began pursuing his lifelong interest in art more seriously, opening the retail store to market his work.
Other local businesses followed, including a restaurant and a radio station, which he's since divested, leaving himself more time to devote to performing. Besides his reunion with Yarnell, he's been honing a stand-up comedy act. There's also a documentary film about him in the works. And he's ready to stand up to the common perceptions -- and misperceptions -- about mime. "If people say they won't come to my show because they hate mime, put them on the phone with me. I'd tell them, if you hate mime, you'll love this show, because I don't like it either. I tear mime to pieces. I come out and say I'm a recovering mime, I play blank tapes at full volume." But don't let him fool you: He's breaking down your defenses, because he wants to show you that in the right hands, "mime isn't a four-letter word.
"People make fun of [mime] and it's not fair, because a good mime is really exciting," Robert declares. "To be a mime, you have to be a clown, and to be a clown you have to be a mime. Unfortunately, there's a generation that doesn't know there is great physical comedy and clowning and mime out there."
And now may be the right time to get reacquainted. "I keep working on new techniques," he explains. "As you get older, I guess you get smarter about what you're doing. Your brain is more developed, and can work better with the body. It's taken a long time for me to learn not to have a big ego. It was really a blessing, because wonderful people came in to help me run my company, trained me on how it really should be done.
"I have time to do stuff now," he continues. "Because my job in the company now is to create the art. That's all I do. That's allowed me to get back into performing."
And facilitated the reunion with Yarnell. "We will be working for about two months. A lot of it will be knowing the timing, getting music and the costumes. She wants to know exactly what we're going to be doing. She's very disciplined. Before I met Lorene, I was so out of shape I couldn't even jump to conclusions. I'm more the type to say, 'OK, I'll be over here, and when I'm talking just come out.' She doesn't work that way. I feel like I can just turn it on." And perhaps in his ultimate tribute to his years in Sedona, he adds, "I've learned to turn it off also."
