Clarence Brown

Born in Clinton, Massachusetts,^[2] to Larkin Harry Brown, a cotton manufacturer, and Katherine Ann Brown (née Gaw), Brown moved to Tennessee when he was 11 years old. He attended Knoxville High School^[3]and the University of Tennessee, both in Knoxville, Tennessee, graduating from the university at the age of 19 with two degrees in engineering.^[4]An early fascination in automobiles led Brown to a job with the Stevens-Duryea Company, then to his own Brown Motor Car Company in Alabama.^[5]He later abandoned the car dealership after developing an interest in motion pictures around 1913. He was hired by the Peerless Studio at Fort Lee, New Jersey, and became an assistant to the French-born director Maurice Tourneur.^[6]

 

After serving as a fighter pilot and flight instructor in the United States Army Air Service during World War I,^{[7][8][9][10][11]}Brown was given his first co-directing credit (with Tourneur) for The Great Redeemer (1920). Later that year, he directed a major portion of The Last of the Mohicans after Tourneur was injured in a fall.

Brown moved to Universal in 1924, and then to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he remained until the mid-1950s. At MGM he was one of the main directors of their major female stars, he directed Joan Crawford six times and Greta Garbo seven.

Brown was nominated five times for six films (see below) for an Academy Award as a director, but he never received an Oscar. However, he won Best Foreign Film for Anna Karenina, starring Garbo at the 1935 Venice International Film Festival.

Brown's films gained a total of 38 Academy Award nominations and earned nine Oscars. Brown himself received five Academy Award nominations for six films and in 1949, he won the British Academy Award for the film version of William Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust.

In 1957, Brown was awarded The George Eastman Award, given by George Eastman House for distinguished contribution to the art of film.^[12]Brown retired a wealthy man due to his real estate investments, but refused to watch new movies, as he feared they might cause him to restart his career.

The Clarence Brown Theater, on the campus of the University of Tennessee, is named in his honor.^[13]He holds the record for most nominations for the Academy Award for Best Director without a win, with six.

Clarence Brown was married four times. His first marriage was to Paula Herndon Pratt in 1913, which lasted until their divorce in 1920.^[14]The couple produced a daughter, Adrienne Brown.^[15]

His second marriage was to Ona Wilson, which lasted from 1922 until their divorce in 1927.^[16]

He was engaged to Dorothy Sebastian^[17]and Mona Maris, although he did not marry either of them, with Maris later saying she ended their relationship because she had her "own ideas of marriage then."^[18]

He married his third wife, Alice Joyce, in 1933 and they divorced in 1945.^[19][20]

His last marriage was to Marian Spies in 1946, which lasted until his death in 1987.^[20]

Brown died at the Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California from kidney failure on August 17, 1987, at the age of 97.^[8]He is interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.^[21]

On February 8, 1960, Brown received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1752 Vine Street, for his contributions to the motion pictures industry.^[22][23]

 

• Trilby (1915)
• The Law of the Land (1917)
• The Blue Bird (1918)
• The Great Redeemer (1920)
• The Last of the Mohicans (1920)
• The Foolish Matrons (1921)
• The Light in the Dark (1922)
• Don't Marry for Money (1923)
• The Acquittal (1923)

• The Signal Tower (1924) – Switch Man
• Ben-Hur (1925) – Chariot Race Spectator (uncredited)
• Navy Blues (1929) – Roller Coaster Rider (uncredited)
• Possessed (1931) – Man on Merry-Go-Round (uncredited) (final film role)

• Brownlow, Kevin. "Clarence Brown" in The Parade's Gone By New York: Knopf (1968)
• Estrin, Allen. "The Hollywood Professionals, Vol. 6: Frank Capra, George Cukor, Clarence Brown", AS Barnes (1980)
• Bastarache, A.J. An Extraordinary Town, How one of America's smallest towns shaped the world – A Historical Marketing Book by A. J. Bastarache.
• Young, Gwenda. 'Clarence Brown: From Knoxville to Hollywood and Back'. Journal of East Tennessee History', pp. 53–73 (2002)
• Young, Gwenda (April 2003). "Star Maker: The Career of Clarence Brown". Sight and Sound. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on May 14, 2007.
• Young, Gwenda. Clarence Brown: Hollywood's Forgotten Master. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2018
• Neely, Jack. "Clarence Brown: The Forgotten Director", Metro Pulse (March 2008)

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Clarence Brown.

 

Wikisource has original works by or about:
Clarence Brown

• Clarence Brown at IMDb
• "An Extraordinary Town – Clinton, Massachusetts" (a book on Brown's birthplace, with an extensive section on Brown), extraordinarytown.com
• Information available on the actual dates and nominations, plus commentary on the nominations for multiple roles/films in 1929/1930 Archived March 28, 2014, at the Wayback Machine, oscars.org
• Clarence Brown profile, virtual-history.com