Joe E. Brown

Brown was born on July 28, 1891 in Holgate, Ohio, near Toledo, into a large family of Welsh descent. He spent most of his childhood in Toledo. In 1902, at the age of ten, he joined a troupe of circus tumblers known as the Five Marvelous Ashtons, who toured the country on both the circus and vaudeville circuits. Later he became a professional baseball player. Despite his skill, he declined an opportunity to sign with the New York Yankees to pursue his career as an entertainer. After three seasons he returned to the circus, then went into vaudeville and finally starred on Broadway. He gradually added comedy to his act, and transformed himself into a comedian. He moved to Broadway in the 1920s, first appearing in the musical comedy Jim Jam Jems. In late 1928, Brown began making silent films and early sound films for various companies, but scored his biggest successes with Warner Bros., which offered him a seven-year contract. He quickly became a favorite with family audiences, and shot to stardom after appearing in the first all-color, all-talking musical comedy On with the Show (1929). He starred in a number of lavish Technicolor musical comedies, including Sally (1929), Hold Everything (1930), Song of the West (1930), and Going Wild (1930). By 1931, Brown's name was billed above the title in the films in which he appeared. Some of the Brown screenplays incorporated his fondness for baseball. In Fireman, Save My Child (1932), he played a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, and in both Elmer, the Great (1933) with Patricia Ellis and Claire Dodd and Alibi Ike (1935) with Olivia de Havilland, he portrayed ballplayers with the Chicago Cubs. In 1933 he starred in Son of a Sailor with Jean Muir and Thelma Todd. In 1934, he displayed his dramatic abilities in the Damon Runyon story A Very Honorable Guy. He went on to make in The Circus Clown (again with Patricia Ellis) and 6 Day Bike Rider with Maxine Doyle. Brown was one of the few vaudeville comedians to appear in a Shakespearean film; he played Francis Flute in the Max Reinhardt/William Dieterle film version of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) and was highly praised for his performance. In 1933 and 1936, he was named one of the top 10 moneymakers in films, and in 1936 he was one of the top 50 moneymakers in Great Britain. In the mid-1930s Joe E. Brown's films had become established commodities, and the studio began to economize on their production. By this time the Brown comedies were merely "program pictures" -- something to fill out a moviehouse program -- instead of the major-motion-picture status they formerly enjoyed. Brown's high-salary contract had become too expensive for Warner Bros. to sustain. The writing was already on the wall in mid-1936, when a magazine reported that "Joe E. Brown is making his next-to-last picture for Warner Brothers. This one is called Earthworm Tractors." The next and last Brown feature for Warner was Polo Joe (1936). By November trade publisher Pete Harrison cautioned exhibitors that "Joe E. Brown [is] not in the employ of this company for the 1936-37 season." Brown had already prepared for his imminent departure. In April 1936 he signed with independent producer David L. Loew for a series of comedies. This was front-page news in the trade: "Brown goes over to Loew about August, or perhaps slightly later this year. The producing alliance between Loew and the comic runs for a period of two years and calls for the production of three features a year. Distribution through RKO is assumed to preclude a deal now in negotiation", Motion Picture Daily observed, "and was seen as merely one in a series of outside deals to come." That's exactly what happened: the six Loew-Brown features were ultimately handled in turn by three different studios: RKO, Columbia, and MGM. Joe E. Brown left Loew in 1938 when his two-year contract lapsed. While his brand of broad comedy was still popular, it was somewhat old-fashioned, much like the slapstick efforts of Laurel and Hardy. As a result, Brown was now being handed "B" pictures for Paramount (one film), Columbia (three films), and finally Republic (four films). The Republics were his last starring vehicles. From this point on, Brown continued in films but in guest appearances and character roles.