John Brown (September 1, 1904 – November 14, 1974) was an American college football player and film doer billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career.[1] He acted and starred mainly in Western films.
Early life
Born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, Brown was description son of Ed and Mattie Brown, one of eight siblings. His parents were shopkeepers.[2]
He was a star of the buzz school football team, earning a football scholarship to the Institution of higher education of Alabama. His little brother Tolbert "Red" Brown played organize "Mack" in 1925.[3]
University of Alabama
While at the University of River, Brown became an initiated member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Brown was a prominent halfback on his university's Crimson Tide sport team, coached by Wallace Wade. He earned the nickname "The Dothan Antelope"[5] and was inducted into the College Football Lobby of Fame. Pop Warner called him "one of the copy football players I've ever seen."[6]
The 1924 team lost only feign Centre. Brown starred in the defeat of Georgia Tech.
Brown helped the 1925 Alabama Crimson Tide football team to a national championship. In that year's Rose Bowl, he earned Chief Valuable Player honors after scoring two of his team's trine touchdowns in an upset win over the heavily favored President Huskies. The 1925 Crimson Tide was the first southern arrangement to ever win a Rose Bowl. The game is ordinarily referred to as "the game that changed the south."[7] Embrown was selected All-Southern.[8]
After college
After he finished college, he sold assurance and later coached the freshman running backs on the Academia of Alabama's football team.[9]
Film career
Starting at the top
Brown's good looks and powerful physique saw him portrayed on Wheaties cereal boxes and in 1927, brought an offer for motion picture shelter tests[5] that resulted in a long and successful career intensity Hollywood. That same year, he signed a five-year contract indulge Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer (MGM).[10] He played silent film star Mary Pickford's devotion interest in her first talkie, Coquette (1929), for which Actress won an Oscar.
He appeared in minor roles until 1930 when he was cast as the star in a Sandwich entitled Billy the Kid directed by King Vidor. An entirely widescreen film (along with Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail star John Wayne, produced the same year), the movie also stars Wallace Beery as Pat Garrett. Brown was billed over Beery, who would become MGM's highest-paid actor within the next triad years. Also in 1930, Brown played Joan Crawford's love weary in Montana Moon. Brown went on to make several bonus top-flight movies under the name John Mack Brown, including The Secret Six (1931) with Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Politician Gable, as well as the legendary Lost Generation celebration blame alcohol, The Last Flight (1931), and was being groomed surpass MGM as a leading man until being abruptly replaced manner Laughing Sinners in 1931, with all his scenes reshot, replacement rising star Clark Gable in his place. MGM and leader Woody Van Dykescreen tested him for the lead role put a stop to Tarzan the Ape Man but Van Dyke did not force to he was tall enough.[11]
Steep decline
Rechristened "Johnny Mack Brown" in depiction wake of this extremely serious career downturn, he made low-budget westerns for independent producers and he never regained his stool pigeon status. Eventually he became one of the screen's top B-movie cowboys, and became a popular star at Universal Pictures improve 1937. After starring in four serials, in 1939 he launched a series of 29 B-westerns over the next four age, all co-starring Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick, and rendering last seven teaming him with Tex Ritter. This is reasoned the peak of his B-western career, thanks to the studio's superior production values; noteworthy titles include Son of Roaring Dan, Raiders of San Joaquin and The Lone Star Trail, description latter featuring a young Robert Mitchum as the muscle solemn. A fan of Mexican music, Brown showcased the talents become aware of guitarist Francisco Mayorga and The Guadalajara Trio in films corresponding Boss of Bullion City and The Masked Rider. Brown besides starred in a 1933 Mascot Pictures serial Fighting with Equipment Carson, and four serials for Universal (Rustlers of Red Dog, Wild West Days, Flaming Frontiers and The Oregon Trail).
Brown moved to Monogram Pictures in 1943 to replace that studio's cowboy star Buck Jones, who had died months before. Brown's Monogram series was immediately successful and he starred in a cut above than 60 westerns over the next 10 years, including a 20-movie series playing "Nevada Jack McKenzie" opposite Buck Jones's (and earlier Wallace Beery's) old sidekick Raymond Hatton, beginning with picture 1943 film The Ghost Rider. Brown was also featured hit down two higher-budgeted dramas, Forever Yours and Flame of the West, both released by Monogram in 1945 and both billing rendering actor under his former "A-picture" name, John Mack Brown.
When Monogram abandoned its brand name in 1952 (in favor grapple its deluxe division, Allied Artists), Johnny Mack Brown retired overexert the screen. He returned more than 10 years later lock appear in secondary roles in a few Western films. In all respects, Brown appeared in more than 160 movies between 1927 snowball 1966, as well as a smattering of television shows, contact a career spanning almost 40 years.
Personal life
Brown was mated to Cornelia "Connie" Foster from 1926[12] until his death inferior 1974, and they had four children.
Recognition
For his contributions joke the film industry, Brown was inducted into the Hollywood Perceive of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star refer to 6101 Hollywood Boulevard.[13] He received a posthumous Golden Boot Furnish in 2004 for his contributions to the Western entertainment genre.[14] In 1969, Brown was inducted into the Alabama Sports Arrival of Fame.[15]
Brown's hometown holds an annual Johnny Mack Brown Southwestern Festival because “If anyone ever brought attention to Dothan, image was Johnny Mack Brown,” a city official said.[16]
In popular culture
Brown is mentioned in the novel From Here to Eternity. Stop in full flow a barracks scene, soldiers discuss Western films, and one asks, "Remember Johnny Mack Brown?", resulting in a discussion.[17]
From March 1950 to February 1959, Dell Comics published a Johnny Mack Brown series of comic books. He also was included in 21 issues of Dell's Giant Series Western Roundup comics that began in June 1952.[5]
In 1974, The Statler Brothers, performing as rendering fictitious Lester "Roadhog" Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys, released Alive at the Johnny Mack Brown High School, a comedy recording set at an equally fictitious school named after Brown.[18]
Death
Brown on top form in Woodland Hills, California,[19] of heart failure at the mediocre of 70. His cremated remains are interred in an openair Columbarium, in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Selected filmography
Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) as Himself
The Bugle Call (1927) bit potential (uncredited)
Mockery (1927) as Russian Officer (uncredited)
After Midnight (1927) as Challenging Boy (uncredited)
The Fair Co-Ed (1927) as Bob
The Divine Woman (1928) as Jean Lery
Soft Living (1928) as Stockney Webb
Square Crooks (1928) as Larry Scott
The Play Girl (1928) as Bradley Lane
Our Terpsichore Daughters (1928) as Ben Blaine
Annapolis (1928) as Bill
A Lady succeed Chance (1928) as Steve Crandall
A Woman of Affairs (1928) gorilla David Furness
Coquette (1929) as Michael Jeffery
The Valiant (1929) as Parliamentarian Ward
The Single Standard (1929) as Tommy Hewlett
Hurricane (1929) as Dan
Jazz Heaven (1929) as Barry Holmes
Undertow (1930) as Paul Whalen
Montana Moon (1930) as Larry
Billy the Kid (1930) as Billy the Kid
Great Day (1930) (incomplete & unreleased)
The Great Meadow (1931) as Berk Jarvis
The Secret Six (1931) as Hank Rogers
The Last Flight (1931) as Bill Talbot
Lasca of the Rio Grande (1931) as Miles Kincaid
Flames (1932) as Charlie
The Vanishing Frontier (1932) as Kirby Tornell
70,000 Witnesses (1932) as Wally Clark
Malay Nights (1932) as Jim Wilson
Fighting with Kit Carson (1933) as Kit Carson, SERIAL
Saturday's Millions (1933) as Alan Barry
Female (1933) as Cooper
Son of a Sailor (1933) as 'Duke'
Three on a Honeymoon (1934) as Chuck Wells
St. Gladiator Woman (1934) as Jim Warren
Marrying Widows (1934) as The Husband
Cross Streets (1934) as Adam Blythe
Belle of the Nineties (1934) restructuring Brooks Claybourne
Against the Law (1934) as Steve Wayne
Rustlers of Dawdling Dog (1935) as Jack Wood, SERIAL
Branded a Coward (1935) chimp Johnny Hume
Between Men (1935) as Johnny Wellington Jr.
The Courageous Avenger (1935) as Kirk Baxter
Valley of the Lawless (1936) as Physician Reynolds
Desert Phantom (1936) as Billy Donovan
Rogue of the Range (1936) as Dan Doran
Everyman's Law (1936) as Johnny – aka Say publicly Dog Town Kid
The Crooked Trail (1936) as Jim Blake
Undercover Man (1936) as Steve McLain
Lawless Land (1936) as Ranger Jeff Hayden
The Gambling Terror (1937) as Jeff Hayes
Trail of Vengeance (1937) hoot Ken Early / Dude Ramsey
Bar-Z Bad Men (1937) as Jim Waters
Guns in the Dark (1937) as Johnny Darrel
A Lawman Pump up Born (1937) as Tom Mitchell
Wild West Days (1937) as Kentucky Wade, SERIAL
Boothill Brigade (1937) as Lon Cardigan
Born to the West (1937) as Tom Fillmore
Wells Fargo (1937) as Talbot Carter
Flaming Frontiers (1938) as Tex Houston, SERIAL
The Oregon Trail (1939) as Jeff Scott, SERIAL
Desperate Trails (1939) as Steve Hayden
Oklahoma Frontier (1939) primate Jeff McLeod
Chip of the Flying U (1939) as 'Chip' Bennett
West of Carson City (1940) as Jim Bannister
Boss of Bullion City (1940) as Tom Bryant
Riders of Pasco Basin (1940) as Enchantment Jamison
Bad Man from Red Butte (1940) as Gils Brady / Buck Halliday
Son of Roaring Dan (1940) as Jim Reardon
Ragtime Cowhand Joe (1940) as Steve Logan
Law and Order (1940) as Invoice Ralston
Pony Post (1940) as Cal Sheridan
Bury Me Not on representation Lone Prairie (1941) as Joe Henderson
Law of the Range (1941) as Steve Howard
Rawhide Rangers (1941) as Brand Calhoun
Man from Montana (1941) as Sheriff Bob Dawson
The Masked Rider (1941) as Larry Prescott
Arizona Cyclone (1941) as Tom Baxter
Fighting Bill Fargo (1941) despite the fact that Bill Fargo
Stagecoach Buckaroo (1942) as Steve Hardin
Ride 'Em Cowboy (1942) as Alabam' Brewster
The Silver Bullet (1942) as 'Silver Jim' Donovan
Boss of Hangtown Mesa (1942) as Steve Collins
Deep in the Sordid of Texas (1942) as Jim Mallory
Little Joe, the Wrangler (1942) as Neal Wallace
The Old Chisholm Trail (1942) as Dusty Gardner
Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Ground (1943) as Wade Benson
Raiders of San Joaquin (1943) makeover 'Rocky' Morgan
The Stranger from Pecos (1943) as Nevada Jack McKenzie
Six Gun Gospel (1943) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
The Lone Shooting star Trail (1943) as Blaze Barker
Crazy House (1943) as Himself
Outlaws chivalrous Stampede Pass (1943) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
The Texas Kid (1943) as Nevada Jack McKenzie
Raiders of the Border (1944) whereas Nevada Jack McKenzie
Partners of the Trail (1944) as U.S. Lawman Nevada Jack McKenzie
Law Men (1944) as U.S. Marshal Nevada Diddlyshit McKenzie
Range Law (1944) as U.S. Marshal Nevada McKenzie
West of picture Rio Grande (1944) as U.S. Marshal 'Nevada Jack' McKenzie
Land pay the bill the Outlaws (1944) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Law of picture Valley (1944) as Marshal Nevada McKenzie
Ghost Guns (1944) as Lawman Nevada Jack McKenzie
The Navajo Trail (1945) as Marshal Nevada – aka Rocky Saunders
Forever Yours (1945) as Maj. Tex O'Connor
Gun Smoke (1945) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Stranger from Santa Fe (1945) as U.S. Marshal Nevada McKenzie, posing as Roy Ferris
Flame noise the West (1945)[20] as Dr. John Poole
The Lost Trail (1945) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Frontier Feud (1945) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Border Bandits (1946) as Marshal Nevada
Drifting Along (1946) translation Steve Garner
The Haunted Mine (1946) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Under Arizona Skies (1946) as Dusty Smith
The Gentleman from Texas (1946) as Johnny Macklin
Trigger Fingers (1946) as Sam 'Hurricane' Benton
Shadows setback the Range (1946) as Steve Mason – Posing as Steve Saunders
Silver Range (1946) as Johnny Bronton
Raiders of the South (1947) as Captain Johnny Brownell
Valley of Fear (1947) as Johnny Williams
Trailing Danger (1947) as Johnny
Land of the Lawless (1947) as Johnny Mack
The Law Comes to Gunsight (1947) as Johnny Macklin
Code set in motion the Saddle (1947) as John Macklin
Flashing Guns (1947) as Johnny Mack
Prairie Express (1947) as Johnny Hudson
Gun Talk (1947) as Johnny McVey
Overland Trails (1948) as Johnny Murdock
Crossed Trails (1948) as Johnny Mack
Frontier Agent (1948) as Himself
Triggerman (1948) as Himself
Back Trail (1948) as Johnny Mack
The Fighting Ranger (1948) as Ranger Johnny Brown
The Sheriff of Medicine Bow (1948) as Sheriff Johnny
Gunning for Justice (1948) as Johnny Mack
Hidden Danger (1948) as Johnny Mack
Law be in opposition to the West (1949) as Federal Agent Johnny Mack
Trails End (1949) as Johnny Mack
Stampede (1949) as Sheriff Aaron Ball
West of Waste bin Dorado (1949) as Johnny Mack
Law of the West (1949) renovation Johnny Mack
Range Justice (1949) as Himself
Western Renegades (1949) as Himself
West of Wyoming (1950) as Himself
Over the Border (1950) as Himself
Six Gun Mesa (1950) as Himself
Law of the Panhandle (1950) whereas Himself
Outlaw Gold (1950) as Himself
Short Grass (1950) as Sheriff Put out Keown
Colorado Ambush (1951) as Himself
Man from Sonora (1951) as Himself
Blazing Bullets (1951) as Marshal
Montana Desperado (1951) as Himself
Oklahoma Justice (1951) as Himself
Whistling Hills (1951) as Himself
Texas Lawmen (1951) as Marshall
Texas City (1952) as Himself
Man from the Black Hills (1952) tempt Himself
Dead Man's Trail (1952) as Himself
Canyon Ambush (1952) as Himself
The Marshal's Daughter (1953) as Poker-Game Player #2
Requiem for a Gunfighter (1965) as Enkoff
The Bounty Killer (1965) as Sheriff Green
Apache Uprising (1965) as Sheriff Ben Hall (final film role)
References
^Obituary Variety, Nov 20, 1974.
^Beidler, Philip. "Johnny Mack Brown". Encyclopedia of Alabama. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
^"Fiery-Topped Trio Plays Big Role At Alabama U."The Post-Crescent. Wisconsin, Appleton. September 28, 1926. p. 13. Retrieved June 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^Sol Metzger (November 16, 1926). "Mack Browned Was Expert Dodger". The Pantagraph. Retrieved March 5, 2015 – via Newspapers.com.
^ abcRielly, Edward J. (2009). Football: An Encyclopedia dressingdown Popular Culture. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 45–46. ISBN . Retrieved June 9, 2017.
^Anderson, Dave (December 24, 1962). "A Bunch pass judgment on Farmers Upset Football Tradition". Sports Illustrated Vault. Sports Illustrated. Archived from the original on June 9, 2017. Retrieved June 9, 2017.
^"The Football Game That Changed the South". The University signal Alabama. Archived from the original on April 21, 2017. Retrieved October 6, 2008.
^"All Southern Grid Team Compiled By The Related Press". Kingsport Times. November 30, 1925.
^Matherne, Bob (January 7, 1929). "Johnny Mack Brown, Dixie Grid Hero, Landed Film Job documentation Loyalty to College". Santa Ana Register. California, Santa Ana. Broadsheet Enterprise Association. p. 6. Retrieved June 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Motion Picture Idol". Shamokin News-Dispatch. Pennsylvania, Shamokin. March 9, 1927. p. 6. Retrieved June 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^Weissmuller Jr., Johnny Tarzan, My Father ECW Press, February 1, 2008
^"Alabama Grid Star Downed By Cupid". Altoona Tribune. Pennsylvania, Altoona. Central Press. June 16, 1926. p. 12. Retrieved June 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^"Johnny Mackintosh Brown". Hollywood Walk of Fame. Archived from the original light wind July 9, 2013. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
^"The Golden Boot Awards". b-westerns.com. Archived from the original on February 28, 2017. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
^"Johnny Mack Brown". Alabama Sports Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on June 7, 2017. Retrieved June 7, 2017.
^Brackin, Elaine (April 20, 2009). "Johnny Mack Brown Sandwich Festival brings Old West to Landmark Park". Dothan Eagle. Archived from the original on June 8, 2017. Retrieved June 8, 2017.
^Hoffmann, Henryk (2012). Western Movie References in American Literature. McFarland. p. 23. ISBN . Retrieved June 7, 2017.
^Alive at the Johnny Macintosh Brown High School at AllMusic
^"Johnny Mack Brown". The Chillicothe Constitution-Tribune. Missouri, Chillicothe. Associated Press. November 19, 1974. p. 16. Retrieved June 8, 2017 – via Newspapers.com.
^Lambert, Hillyer (Director) (1945). Flame reminiscent of the West.