Brook was born Claude Sydney Brook Marnat in Mexico City, to a British father and a Mexican mother of French Basque descent. Raised fluent in Spanish, English, and French, he worked in the British embassy as a clerk while playing semi-pro association football for Atlante F.C.
Making him film debut in 1955, Brook appeared in over 100 film and television productions. He also worked in the theatre, playing the lead role in the Mexican premiere of Man of La Mancha in Mexico City in 1969
One of his most fruitful collaborations was with director Luis Buñuel, he appeared in five of the directors films over the course of nine years - The Young One (1960), Viridiana (1961), The Exterminating Angel (1962) Simon of the Desert (1965), and The Milky Way (1969).
He won two Ariel Awards - Best Actor1 for Memoriales perdidos (1985) and Best Supporting Actor for Esperanza (1988).
Brook also appeared in several international productions; notably as a British RAF pilot in French director Gérard Oury's war comedy La Grande Vadrouille (1966), secret agent Francis Coplan in Coplan Saves His Skin (1968), a banker in the James Bond film Licence to Kill (1989), and Barone in Tony Scott's Revenge (1990).
His distinctive voice and precise elocution found him plenty of voiceover work throughout his career, including dubbing and narration. He was the official Spanish-language spokesperson of Chrysler Motors from 1984 to 1992. He also recorded bumpers and sign-ons for Chilean radio.
One of his final roles was as the villain Dieter de la Guardia in Guillermo del Toro's directorial debut Cronos (1992).
Brook was married three times, to Spanish-born Mercedes Pascual; to fellow voice actor Eugenia Avendaño; and finally to Alicia Bonet. He had four children, including actress Simone Brook (born 1969). His daughter Claudia died of cancer in 1997, and his son Gabriel died in a car accident in 2004.
Brook died of stomach cancer on 18 October 1995, at the age of 68. He posthumously starred on the telenovela Retrato de familia, which premiered a week after his death.
aka Chronicle of a Latin American Subversive(International: English title).
"XXVIII 1986 — Ganadores y nominados" (in Spanish). Asociación Mexicana de Artes y Ciencias Cinematográficas. 1986. Archived from the original on June 16, 2016. Retrieved February 10, 2024. https://web.archive.org/web/20160616182956/http://v1.academiamexicanadecine.org.mx/ver_ariel.asp?anio=XXVIII+1986&tipo=anio ↩