Joe E. Brown
Joseph Evans Brown (July 28, 1891 – July 6, 1973) was an American actor and comedian, remembered for his friendly screen persona, comic timing, and enormous elastic-mouth smile.[2] He was one of the most popular American comedians in the 1930s and 1940s, with films like A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935), Earthworm Tractors (1936), and Alibi Ike (1935). In his later career Brown starred in Some Like It Hot (1959), as Osgood Fielding III, in which he utters the film's famous punchline "Well, nobody's perfect."
This article is about the actor and comedian. For the Georgia governor, see Joseph E. Brown. For the South Carolina legislator, see Joe Ellis Brown.
Joe E. Brown
July 6, 1973 (aged 81)
1928–1964
4, including Joe L. Brown
Early life[edit]
Brown was born on July 28, 1891[3] 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.
Radio and television announcing[edit]
Brown has a place in Boston's sports history. On April 14, 1925, radio station WBZ (AM) broadcast a local Major League baseball game for the first time. The Boston Braves played against the New York Giants, a game that the Braves won 5–4. The radio announcer for that day was Joe E. Brown. Brown was a devoted baseball fan, and some sportswriters who had seen him when he was a semi-pro player still believed he could have become a successful major league player one day.[6] In April 1925, he was in the Boston area, starring in a stage performance of "Betty Lee" at Boston's Majestic Theater.[7] Brown knew several of the Boston sportswriters, especially sports cartoonist Abe Savrann ("SAV") of the Boston Traveler. Brown was a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks,[8] and so was Savrann, who brought him in as a guest speaker at the mid-April 1925 meeting of the Cambridge, Massachusetts Elks Lodge.[9] Savrann noted in his Traveler cartoon on April 15, 1925 (p. 20) that Brown had been the game announcer that day. And the radio critic for the New Britain (CT) Daily Herald wrote that "It is too bad that Joe E. Brown, who announced the game yesterday, could not fill that place during the entire season," noting that Brown not only described the game well but also offered amusing and interesting anecdotes in the process.[10] While there is no information that he did any further radio play-by-play announcing, he did return to the broadcast booth in television, in 1953. He served as a commentator for the New York Yankees games on WPIX-TV.[11] His TV duties included a 15-minute pre-game show and a 10-minute post-game show throughout the season.[12] At the end of the season, he was replaced by Red Barber.[13]
In popular culture[edit]
Brown was caricatured in the Disney cartoons Mickey's Gala Premiere (1933), Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), and The Autograph Hound (1939); all contain a scene in which he is seen laughing so loud that his mouth opens extremely wide. According to the official biography Daws Butler: Characters Actor, Daws Butler used Joe E. Brown as inspiration for the voices of two Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters: Lippy the Lion (1962) and Peter Potamus (1963–1966).[21]
He also starred in his own comic strip in the British comic Film Fun between 1933 and 1953.
Brown was an aviation enthusiast. Zack Mosley, creator of the popular comic strip The Adventures of Smilin' Jack, tributed Brown with the fictional lookalike character Flannelmouth Don; an air show announcer who did not need a microphone to be heard over the roar of multiple plane engines. The character appeared in the strip from the mid-1940s until the mid 1950s.
Later life and family[edit]
Brown married Kathryn Francis McGraw in 1915. The marriage lasted until his death in 1973. The couple had four children: two sons, Don Evan Brown (December 25, 1916 – October 8, 1942; captain in the United States Army Air Force, who was killed in the crash of an A-20B Havoc bomber while serving as a ferry pilot)[22] and Joe LeRoy "Joe L." Brown (September 1, 1918 – August 15, 2010), and two daughters, Mary Katherine Ann (b. 1930) and Kathryn Francis (b. 1934). Both daughters were adopted as infants.
Joe L. Brown shared his father's love of baseball, serving as general manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates from 1955 to 1976, and briefly in 1985, also building the 1960 and 1971 World Series champions. Brown's '71 Pirates featured baseball's first all-black starting nine.
Brown was a Freemason. He became a member of Rubicon Lodge in Toledo in 1915.[23][24]
In November 1961, a brush fire destroyed his home, including all the memorabilia from his career.[Los Angeles Times, November 7, 1961, p. 7]