Johnny Mack Brown

Born: September 1, 1904, Dothan, Alabama.  Died: November 14, 1974,  died in Woodland Hills, California of heart failure at the age of 70. He was interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California.

Johnny Mack Brown was born in Dothan, Alabama on September 1, 1904, the son of Hattie Estelle and John H. Brown. He entered the University of Alabama in 1924 and won national recognition as an out standing football player, performing as a halfback with one of the greatest teams in gridiron history. 

An excellent field runner and pass receiver, Johnny caught one of the longest completed passes on record during his first game against Georgia Tech. In a contest against Kentucky, he made a 100-yard dash to score the winning touchdown.

During the football season of 1925, Johnny received another record-breaking forward pass by team-mate Grant Gillis while playing against Washington University and ran the remaining twenty yards to a TD. The following year, he caught a 65-yard pass by A. T. "Pooley" Hubert in the Rose Bowl classic that won Alabama the game. In the 1926 contest versus Georgia Tech, played on a muddy field, Johnny returned a kickoff by Doug Wyckoff, running fifty-five yards to make the only score of the game. 

Of all his spectacular feats on the gridiron, Johnny's greatest play was during the Rose Bowl classic of 1927 when he intercepted a pass and made the final touchdown with only seconds to play, helping his team to victory with a score of 20-19. Unbeaten in 1925 and1926, Alabama ranked as one of the best teams in the country and Johnny Mack Brown became an All-American halfback. He was later elected to the Football Hall of Fame.

After finishing college, Johnny stayed on at Alabama U. as a coach. But Hollywood beckoned and he was led into making his movie debut in a 1927 M-G-M film called The Bugle Call. His immediate success earned him a contract with that studio and he was cast as a romantic lead opposite some of the biggest names in the business. Appearing with such popular feminine stars as Greta Garbo, Mary Pickford and Joan Crawford, Johnny quickly rose to the heights of fame and fortune through a long list of top-notch features.

In 1930, M-G-M released one of its greatest epics when it brought a picture entitled Billy the Kid to the screen. Filmed in a new 70 mm. Wide-screen process, it starred Johnny Mack Brown as "Billy," with veteran character actor Wallace Beery and an excellent supporting cast. It was largely due to this picture that Johnny finally achieved stardom. By 1931, he was busy making a large number of features for M-G-M, First National and Paramount. Although he had starred in at least a dozen fine melodramas, the lure of cowboy roles appealed most to Johnny, for it was in these action-type features that he felt most at home. Around 1933, he became associated with Universal Studios where he specialized in Westerns of exceptionally good quality, making a hit in a chain of thrilling serials and full-length features. 

From that time on, he was regarded as one of the most popular cowboy favorites in the movies. He had an extremely likeable personality and his handsome, clean-cut appearance blended well with his characterizations. Portraying the mild-tempered hero whose modesty concealed a strong, manly quality, Johnny was able to convey his fine sense of good sportsmanship to the thousands of fans that idolized him. Beginning in 1940, he was selected as one of the ten biggest money-making Western stars for eleven consecutive years. During his reign, he never gave a bad performance.