Johnny Mack Brown

Johnny Mack Brown
John Brown (September 1, 1904 – November 14, 1974) was an American college football player and film actor billed as John Mack Brown at the height of his screen career. He acted and starred mainly in Western films.
Early life
Born and raised in Dothan, Alabama, Brown was the son of Ed and Mattie Brown, one of eight siblings. His parents were shopkeepers. He was a star of the high school football team, earning a football scholarship to the University of Alabama. His little brother Tolbert "Red" Brown played with "Mack" in 1925.
After he finished college, he sold insurance and later coached the freshman running backs on the University of Alabama's football team.
University of Alabama
While at the University of Alabama, Brown became an initiated member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.
Football
Brown was a prominent halfback on his university's Crimson Tide football team, coached by Wallace Wade. He earned the nickname "The Dothan Antelope" and was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame. Pop Warner called him "one of the fastest football players I've ever seen."
1924
The 1924 team lost only to Centre. Brown starred in the defeat of Georgia Tech.
1925
Brown helped the 1925 Alabama Crimson Tide football team to a national championship. In that year's Rose Bowl, he earned Most Valuable Player honors after scoring two of his team's three touchdowns in an upset win over the heavily favored Washington Huskies. The 1925 Crimson Tide was the first southern team to ever win a Rose Bowl. The game is commonly referred to as "the game that changed the south." Brown was selected All-Southern.
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 screen tests that resulted in a long and successful career in Hollywood. That same year, he signed a five-year contract with Metro–Goldwyn–Mayer. He played silent film star Mary Pickford's love interest in her first talkie, Coquette (1929), for which Pickford won an Oscar.
He appeared in minor roles until 1930 when he was cast as the star in a Western entitled Billy the Kid and directed by King Vidor. An early widescreen film (along with Raoul Walsh's The Big Trail starring 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 three years. Also in 1930, Brown played Joan Crawford's love interest in Montana Moon. Brown went on to make several more top-flight movies under the name John Mack Brown, including The Secret Six (1931) with Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable, as well as the legendary Lost Generation celebration of alcohol, The Last Flight (1931), and was being groomed by MGM as a leading man until being abruptly replaced on Laughing Sinners in 1931, with all his scenes reshot, substituting rising star Clark Gable in his place. MGM and director Woody Van Dyke screen tested him for the lead role of Tarzan the Ape Man but Van Dyke didn't feel he was tall enough.
Steep decline
Rechristened "Johnny Mack Brown" in the wake of this extremely serious career downturn, he made low-budget westerns for independent producers and he never regained his former status. Eventually he became one of the screen's top B-movie cowboys, and became a popular star at Universal Pictures in 1937. After starring in four serials, in 1939 he launched a series of 29 B-westerns over the next four years, all co-starring Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick, and the last seven teaming him with Tex Ritter. This is considered 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, the latter featuring a young Robert Mitchum as the muscle heavy. A fan of Mexican music, Brown showcased the talents of guitarist Francisco Mayorga and The Guadalajara Trio in films like Boss of Bullion City and The Masked Rider. Brown also starred in a 1933 Mascot Pictures serial Fighting with Kit 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 more 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 the 1943 film The Ghost Rider. Brown was also featured in two higher-budgeted dramas, Forever Yours and Flame of the West, both released by Monogram in 1945 and both billing the actor under his former "A-picture" name, John Mack Brown.
When Monogram abandoned its brand name in 1952 (in favor of its deluxe division, Allied Artists), Johnny Mack Brown retired from the screen. He returned more than 10 years later to appear in secondary roles in a few Western films. Altogether, Brown appeared in more than 160 movies between 1927 and 1966, as well as a smattering of television shows, in a career spanning almost 40 years.
Personal life
Brown was married to Cornelia "Connie" Foster from 1926 until his death in 1974, and they had four children.
Recognition
For his contributions to the film industry, Brown was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star at 6101 Hollywood Boulevard. He received a posthumous Golden Boot Award in 2004 for his contributions to the Western entertainment genre. In 1969, Brown was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame.
Brown's hometown holds an annual Johnny Mack Brown Western Festival because “If anyone ever brought attention to Dothan, it was Johnny Mack Brown,” a city official said.
In popular culture
Brown is mentioned in the novel From Here to Eternity. In a barracks scene, soldiers discuss Western films, and one asks, "Remember Johnny Mack Brown?", resulting in a discussion.
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.
In 1974, The Statler Brothers, performing as the fictitious Lester "Roadhog" Moran and the Cadillac Cowboys, released Alive at the Johnny Mack Brown High School, a comedy album set at an equally fictitious school named after Brown.
Death
Brown died in Woodland Hills, California, of heart failure at the age of 70. His cremated remains are interred in an outdoor Columbarium, in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery.
Selected filmography
Slide, Kelly, Slide (1927) as Himself
The Bugle Call (1927) bit part (uncredited)
Mockery (1927) as Russian Officer (uncredited)
After Midnight (1927) as Party 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 Dancing Daughters (1928) as Ben Blaine
Annapolis (1928) as Bill
A Lady of Chance (1928) as Steve Crandall
A Woman of Affairs (1928) as David Furness
Coquette (1929) as Michael Jeffery
The Valiant (1929) as Robert 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. Louis Woman (1934) as Jim Warren
Marrying Widows (1934) as The Husband
Cross Streets (1934) as Adam Blythe
Belle of the Nineties (1934) as Brooks Claybourne
Against the Law (1934) as Steve Wayne
Rustlers of Red Dog (1935) as Jack Wood, SERIAL
Branded a Coward (1935) as Johnny Hume
Between Men (1935) as Johnny Wellington Jr.
The Courageous Avenger (1935) as Kirk Baxter
Valley of the Lawless (1936) as Bruce Reynolds
Desert Phantom (1936) as Billy Donovan
Rogue of the Range (1936) as Dan Doran
Everyman's Law (1936) as Johnny – aka The 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) as Ken Early / Dude Ramsey
Bar-Z Bad Men (1937) as Jim Waters
Guns in the Dark (1937) as Johnny Darrel
A Lawman Is 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) as 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 Lee Jamison
Bad Man from Red Butte (1940) as Gils Brady / Buck Halliday
Son of Roaring Dan (1940) as Jim Reardon
Ragtime Cowboy Joe (1940) as Steve Logan
Law and Order (1940) as Bill Ralston
Pony Post (1940) as Cal Sheridan
Bury Me Not on the 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) as 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 Heart 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
The Ghost Rider (1943) as Nevada Jack McKenzie
Cheyenne Roundup (1943) as Buck Brandon & Gils Brandon
Raiders of San Joaquin (1943) as 'Rocky' Morgan
The Stranger from Pecos (1943) as Nevada Jack McKenzie
Six Gun Gospel (1943) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
The Lone Star Trail (1943) as Blaze Barker
Crazy House (1943) as Himself
Outlaws of Stampede Pass (1943) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
The Texas Kid (1943) as Nevada Jack McKenzie
Raiders of the Border (1944) as Nevada Jack McKenzie
Partners of the Trail (1944) as U.S. Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Law Men (1944) as U.S. Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Range Law (1944) as U.S. Marshal Nevada McKenzie
West of the Rio Grande (1944) as U.S. Marshal 'Nevada Jack' McKenzie
Land of the Outlaws (1944) as Marshal Nevada Jack McKenzie
Law of the Valley (1944) as Marshal Nevada McKenzie
Ghost Guns (1944) as Marshal 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 of the West (1945) 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) as 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 on 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 of 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 of the West (1949) as Federal Agent Johnny Mack
Trails End (1949) as Johnny Mack
Stampede (1949) as Sheriff Aaron Ball
West of El Dorado (1949) as Johnny Mack
Law of the West (1949) as 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) as Himself
Outlaw Gold (1950) as Himself
Short Grass (1950) as Sheriff Ord 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) as 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
External links
1904 births
1974 deaths
20th-century American male actors
Alabama Crimson Tide football players
American male film actors
American male silent film actors
Male film serial actors
Male Western (genre) film actors
All-Southern college football players
Players of American football from Dothan, Alabama
Male actors from Alabama
Burials at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Glendale)