"His mouth was like a suckerfish around my big toe!" Josh Brolin isn't goofing on his notorious
armpit-licking encounter with Patricia Arquette last year, in Flirting With Disaster, but on
a recent L.A. news report about a foot fetishist posing as an aspiring massage therapist. "The
armpit thing's not far removed from reality," he says, laughing. "You start to see how much it
parallels it." As a rule, Brolin, 28, tries not to dwell on parallels -- specifically, those frequently
drawn between his own career, now gaining momentum with his new film, the indie
psychothriller Nightwatch, and that of his father, television mainstay James Brolin. It's
not that Josh frets about how their resumes will compare. It's been more than a decade since he
got into the family business, and he has run the gamut from the kids' adventure flick The
Goonies to a role as the young Wild Bill Hickok on the early 90s TV series Young
Riders. It's just that the younger Brolin would rather discuss his children, 8-year-old son
Trevor and 3-year-old daughter Eden, than talk about whose kid he happens to be. Certainly
there's plenty of ground to cover. The mother of his children, actress Deborah Adair, is both his
ex-wife and current live-in love. The couple's divorce, it seems, didn't work out. "The kids
come first," Brolin says. "I was always away from my girlfriend at the time, seeing the kids, and
I'd show up going, Morning! Can I make you some coffee?' And Debbie's boyfriend would be
like, Why is he here?'" With Brolin's rugged charm and his upcoming screen turn, the answer
should soon become clear.
--Tom Russo
The Look: Josh Brolin is wearing a shirt by Gotta Have It. Skin care is Pure Rain Lever
2000. Cologne is Jean-Paul Gaultier's Le Male. Hair care is Vavoom Shampooing,
conditioning, smoothing gel and spritzing extra by Matrix Essentials.
--Photograph by Dewey Nicks
Reprinted without permission. 1997 US Magazine.