Peter Robbins (actor)

For other people with the same name, see Peter Robbins (disambiguation).

Peter Robbins
File:Peter Robbins Blondie 1968 (cropped).JPG Robbins in a publicity photo for Blondie (1968)
Born	Louis Nanasi (1956-08-10)August 10, 1956 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	Carlsbad, California
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1963–1972

Peter Robbins (born Louis Nanasi; August 10, 1956 – 25 January 2022) was an American child actor. Robbins gained national fame in the 1960s as being the first actor to voice Charlie Brown in the Peanuts animated specials.

Early life

Peter Robbins, birth name Louis Nanasi, was born in Los Angeles, California, on August 10, 1956. Robbins was of Hungarian descent. He graduated from the University of California, San Diego, in 1979. Peter Robbins Blondie 1968 (cropped).JPG

Career

Robbins first began acting in various films and television shows at the age of seven. As a child, he made a guest appearance as "Elmer" in the popular series The Munsters. Most distinctly, at the age of nine, Robbins provided the voice of Charlie Brown, whom he considered to be his childhood hero, in one television documentary, six Peanuts television specials and one movie from 1963 to 1969, including the film A Boy Named Charlie Brown and the television specials A Charlie Brown Christmas and It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. At the age of fourteen, Robbins was replaced by younger child actors in the Peanuts specials produced after the 1960s, but his trademark scream of "AUGH!!", first used in It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, continued to be used in later specials for Charlie Brown and other Peanuts characters.

Robbins appeared in an episode of F Troop in 1966 entitled "The Sergeant And The Kid" and appeared in an episode of Get Smart as the mysterious "Dr. T". He also appeared in the Sonny & Cher film, Good Times. Robbins retired from the entertainment industry in 1972, and later pursued his career in real estate, with brief stints in radio. In 1996, he hosted a talk radio show in Palm Springs at KPSL 1010 Talk Radio. By 2006, according to a broadcast by National Public Radio, he was managing real estate in Van Nuys, California. By 2020, after finally receiving the correct medication for his lifetime bipolar disorder, and functioning emotionally normal, Robbins was back, signing autographs of the Charlie Brown Christmas book in public appearances at Comic-Con conventions across the United States. Robbins explained the path which led to his recovery in an October 2019 television interview with Fox 5 San Diego reporter Phil Bauer. At the time of his death, Robbins was working on his autobiography, Confessions of a Blockhead, detailing his life, his jail experiences, and his future.

Legal issues

On January 20, 2013, Robbins was arrested by San Diego County Sheriff's Department deputies at Homeland Security's Port of Entry in San Ysidro, California, while re-entering the United States, and charged with "four felony counts of making a threat to cause death or great bodily injury and one felony count of stalking." The four counts involve four victims, including a San Diego Police sergeant, whom Robbins reportedly threatened with bodily harm on January 13, 2013. He was held on $550,000 bond. On May 8, 2013, he was sentenced to a year in jail for threatening his former girlfriend and stalking her plastic surgeon, but he was allowed to log time in treatment instead. After release, he was sent to a residential drug treatment centre.

In 2015, Robbins was arrested for multiple probation violations, including drinking alcohol and failing to complete mandatory domestic violence classes. On June 5, 2015, he was ordered to undergo a mental health exam after an outburst during a court proceeding in San Diego.

On December 7, 2015, Robbins was sentenced to four years and eight months in prison as part of a plea agreement for sending threatening letters to the manager (and the manager's wife) of the mobile home park in which he lived in Oceanside, California. Robbins has stated at previous hearings that he suffered from bipolar disorder and paranoid schizophrenia. Robbins was incarcerated at the California Institution for Men in Chino, California, and was transferred to a psychiatric hospital because of his mental state. He was released on parole in October 2019 after serving 80 percent of his sentence, on the conditions that he did not drink alcohol or take any illegal drugs.

Personal life and death

Robbins had a lifelong battle with mental illness. Despite his personal struggles, he remained attached to Charlie Brown and even had a tattoo of Charlie Brown and Snoopy on his arm.

On January 25, 2022, it was announced by Robbins' family that he had died by suicide during the previous week, at the age of 65. Peter Robbins Blondie 1968 (cropped).JPG

Filmography

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1963	A Ticklish Affair	Grover Martin
	A Boy Named Charlie Brown	Charlie Brown	Voice role
1964	Rawhide	Mike
	The Donna Reed Show	Peewee
	Vacation Playhouse	Richard
	The Munsters	Elmer
	The Farmer's Daughter	Josh
	The Joey Bishop Show	Other Child	also Peter
1965	A Charlie Brown Christmas	Charlie Brown	Voice role
	Moment to Moment	Timmy Stanton
1966	And Now Miguel	Pedro
	Charlie Brown's All Stars!	Charlie Brown	Voice role
	Love on a Rooftop
	It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown	Charlie Brown	Voice role
	ABC Stage 67	Herbert
1967	The F.B.I.	Jobie
	F Troop	Joey Walker
	Good Times	Brandon
	You're in Love, Charlie Brown	Charlie Brown	Voice role
	Get Smart	Dr. Tattledove
1968	He's Your Dog, Charlie Brown	Charlie Brown	Voice role
1968-1969	Blondie	Alexander Bumstead
1969	It Was a Short Summer, Charlie Brown	Charlie Brown	Voice role
	A Boy Named Charlie Brown
1970	Bracken's World	David
1971	Dinah's Place	Himself
1972	My Three Sons	Jeffrey Fredericks	Final role
1985	It's Your 20th Television Anniversary, Charlie Brown	Himself
1990	You Don't Look 40, Charlie Brown
2001	The Making of "A Charlie Brown Christmas"
2005	The Tonight Show with Jay Leno
	TV Land's Top Ten
2021	Abq Comic-Con! Documentary

Awards

Awards and nominations

Year	Award	Category	Title	Result
1971	Grammy Awards	Best Recording for Children	A Boy Named Charlie Brown	Nominated
1978		Best Recording for Children	A Charlie Brown Christmas	Nominated
1979		Best Recording for Children	Charlie Brown's All Stars!	Nominated
1980		Best Recording for Children	You're in Love, Charlie Brown	Nominated

External links

• Peter Robbins at the Internet Movie Database
• Peter Robbins at the TCM Movie Database
• Portrait of Peter Robbins, 1971. Los Angeles Times Photographic Archive (Collection 1429). UCLA Library Special Collections, Charles E. Young Research Library, University of California, Los Angeles.