Title: Clarence Brown Collection

Date/Date Range :   undated

Extent: 4.5 linear feet

Abstract:

This addition to the Clarence Brown Collection (UTK-MS-0702) houses photographs, correspondence, and scrapbooks documenting the life and career of acclaimed film producer Clarence Brown.

Call number: MS-1023

Repository: University of Tennessee Special Collections Library, Knoxville, TN

Aquisition Information:

This collection is property of the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library.

Access Restrictions:

Collection is open for research.

Copyright:

The copyright interests in this collection remain with the creator. For more information, contact the Special Collections Library.

Preferred Citation:

[Identification of Item], Clarence Brown Collection, MS-1023. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of one box.

Clarence Brown, film producer and director, was born May 10, 1890, in Clinton, Massachusetts. He moved with his family to Knoxville, TN, where he graduated from Knoxville High School in 1905. Brown received a double degree in mechanical and electrical engineering from the University of Tennessee in 1910 and then began a career, selling automobiles in Alabama. Fascinated with movies, he moved to New Jersey where he studied with French director Maurice Tourneur at Peerless Studios. There, the pair directed The Last of the Mohicans (1920). Brown directed or produced more than fifty widely-acclaimed full length motion pictures, and worked with many of the highly illustrious performers in the film industry: Joan Crawford and Clark Gable in Chained (1934), Spencer Tracy in Edison the Man (1940), Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet (1945), and Gregory Peck in The Yearling (1947). In 1952, Brown retired after having received six Best Director nominations from the Academy Awards, with his films winning eight Oscars. When he died in 1987, Brown left $12 million to the University of Tennessee. When added to the $1 million donated during his lifetime, the sum made him the largest donor in the university's history.

his addition to the Clarence Brown Collection (UTK-MS-0702) houses photographs, correspondence, and scrapbooks documenting the life and career of acclaimed film producer Clarence Brown.

• Brown, Clarence, 1890-1987.
• Motion picture producers and directors -- United States.