Title: The Clarence and Marian Spies Brown Collection

Date/Date Range :   1923-1980

Extent: 2.75 linear feet

Abstract:

This collection contains magazines, theater programs, and correspondence documenting the lives of Clarence and Marian Spies Brown.

Call number: MS-2118

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

Aquisition Information:

Mrs. Marian Spies Brown donated this collection to the University of Tennessee Special Collections Library in 1996.

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], The Clarence and Marian Spies Brown Collection, MS-2118. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Special Collections Library.

Collection consists of three boxes divided into seven series:

1. Series I: Theatre Programs
2. Series II: Playgoer Magazine
3. Series III: Playbill Magazine
4. Series IV: Correspondence
5. Series V: Travel
6. Series VI: Art and Design
7. Series VII: Miscellaneous

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 out of nominations. When he died in 1987, Brown left $12 million to the University of Tennessee, added to the $1 million already donated during his lifetime; this made him the largest donor in the university's history.

This collection is composed primarily of issues of The Playgoer and The Playbill that the Browns collected between 1933 and 1954. It also contains theatre programs from multiple foreign countries, items relating to such of Clarence Brown's non-film interests as architecture and furniture design, and a small amount of correspondence between Marian Spies Brown and various of her friends. Interested researchers may also wish to consult MS 0702 (The Clarence Brown Collection) and its additions, MS 1023 and MS 2010.

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