Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Shields and Yarnell
Shields and Yarnell were an American mime team, formed in 1972, consisting of married couple Robert Shields (born March 26, 1951) and Lorene Yarnell (March 21, 1944 – July 29, 2010).
Shields was born in Los Angeles and graduated from Ulyses S Grant High School. At the age of 18, while working as a street mime and performing at the Hollywood Wax Museum, he was discovered by Marcel Marceau, who offered him a full scholarship to his school of mime in Paris. His apprenticeship was short-lived, however, as he felt the need to develop his own style. Shields soon returned to California, working in Union Square, San Francisco. Shields is credited with being the originator of the hip-hop dance form known as "The Robot", with his street performances and talk show appearances bringing his moves to a wider audience and inspiring young dancers to set it to music. The style was further popularized by Michael Jackson whom Shields claims learned it directly from him in person. In 1974, Shields appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Conversation. In 1998, Shields was recruited by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to serve as their Director of Clowning.
In 2024 a documentary Robert Shields: My Life As A Robot chronicling his career and influence as a mime and entertainer was released. Currently he makes his living as an artist specializing in painting, collages and metal sculpture in a southwestern style in Verde Valley Arizona.
Lorene Yarnell and Robert Shields met when they worked on Fol-de-Rol, a 1972 Sid and Marty Krofft TV special that was Shields' first TV appearance.
Lorene Yarnell, also a native of Los Angeles, had been a dancer and actress in movies and television shows, including Bye Bye Birdie, Shindig!, and The Carol Burnett Show, as well as off-Broadway musicals, before she met Shields, in San Francisco.
She later had speaking guest appearances on The Muppet Show and Wonder Woman, which both also featured Shields.
Yarnell later appeared as Claudine in a 1983 outdoor production of Can-Can at The Muny in St. Louis, starring Broadway's Judy Kaye, John Reardon, John Schuck, Beth Leavel and Lawrence Leritz, her dance partner, to excellent reviews. On film, Yarnell played Dot Matrix (body acting, with Joan Rivers performing the voice) in the 1987 Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs.
Shields and Yarnell's specialty was a series of skits called The Clinkers, in which they assumed the personae of robots, with many individual, deliberate motions (as opposed to normal smooth motion) stereotypical of robots and early animatronics, enhanced by their ability to refrain from blinking their eyes for long stretches of time.
Hub AI
Shields and Yarnell AI simulator
(@Shields and Yarnell_simulator)
Shields and Yarnell
Shields and Yarnell were an American mime team, formed in 1972, consisting of married couple Robert Shields (born March 26, 1951) and Lorene Yarnell (March 21, 1944 – July 29, 2010).
Shields was born in Los Angeles and graduated from Ulyses S Grant High School. At the age of 18, while working as a street mime and performing at the Hollywood Wax Museum, he was discovered by Marcel Marceau, who offered him a full scholarship to his school of mime in Paris. His apprenticeship was short-lived, however, as he felt the need to develop his own style. Shields soon returned to California, working in Union Square, San Francisco. Shields is credited with being the originator of the hip-hop dance form known as "The Robot", with his street performances and talk show appearances bringing his moves to a wider audience and inspiring young dancers to set it to music. The style was further popularized by Michael Jackson whom Shields claims learned it directly from him in person. In 1974, Shields appeared in Francis Ford Coppola's film The Conversation. In 1998, Shields was recruited by the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus to serve as their Director of Clowning.
In 2024 a documentary Robert Shields: My Life As A Robot chronicling his career and influence as a mime and entertainer was released. Currently he makes his living as an artist specializing in painting, collages and metal sculpture in a southwestern style in Verde Valley Arizona.
Lorene Yarnell and Robert Shields met when they worked on Fol-de-Rol, a 1972 Sid and Marty Krofft TV special that was Shields' first TV appearance.
Lorene Yarnell, also a native of Los Angeles, had been a dancer and actress in movies and television shows, including Bye Bye Birdie, Shindig!, and The Carol Burnett Show, as well as off-Broadway musicals, before she met Shields, in San Francisco.
She later had speaking guest appearances on The Muppet Show and Wonder Woman, which both also featured Shields.
Yarnell later appeared as Claudine in a 1983 outdoor production of Can-Can at The Muny in St. Louis, starring Broadway's Judy Kaye, John Reardon, John Schuck, Beth Leavel and Lawrence Leritz, her dance partner, to excellent reviews. On film, Yarnell played Dot Matrix (body acting, with Joan Rivers performing the voice) in the 1987 Mel Brooks movie Spaceballs.
Shields and Yarnell's specialty was a series of skits called The Clinkers, in which they assumed the personae of robots, with many individual, deliberate motions (as opposed to normal smooth motion) stereotypical of robots and early animatronics, enhanced by their ability to refrain from blinking their eyes for long stretches of time.