Clarence Leon Brown was the son of Larkin Harry and Catherine Ann (Gaw) Brown of Clinton, Massachusetts. His family moved to Knoxville, Tennessee, when he was 12 years old. He graduated from Knoxville High School in 1905 and from the University of Tennessee with a B.A. in mechanical and electrical engineering in 1912. After graduation Brown ...
[on Elizabeth Taylor] She has a face that is an Act of God.
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[on "The Trail of '98"] ... the hardest film I ever made.
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[on Valentino] He impressed me as a rather shy man who in private life had none of the exuberance of his film roles. I remember his love of sports cars. We had that in common.
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[on the first movies he ever saw c. 1912] In those days movies were nothing more than penny arcade entertainment. During my lunch hours UI used to go into 'shooting galleries,' as we called theaters then, and look at pictures. Gradually I had the feeling that I would like to try them.
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I direct children as I direct adults, always trying to understand their personalities, and to make them trust me wholeheartedly. Children have a very keen mental perception. They know when you speak to them condescendingly or try to trick them into doing something.
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Working with Garbo was easy because she trusted me. I never directed her in anything above a whisper. She was very shy, so we'd go through the changes I wanted in a little quiet whisper off in the corner, without letting others know what I was telling her. I learned through experience that Garbo had something behind the eyes that told the whole story that I couldn't see from my distance. Sometimes I would be dissatisfied with a take, but would go ahead and print it anyway. On the screen Garbo multiplied the effect of the scene I had taken. It was something that no one else ever had.
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[on Greta Garbo] She has this great appeal to the world because she expresses her emotions by thinking them. Garbo does not need gestures and movements to convey happiness, despair, hope and disappointment, joy or tragedy. She registers her feelings literally by radiating her thoughts to you.
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Maurice Tourneur was my god. I owe him everything I've got in the world. For me, he was the greatest man who ever lived. If it hadn't been for him, I'd still be selling automobiles.
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First I want everything an actress knows. I get her interpretation, then we talk.
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A star is when someone says, "To hell with it, let's leave the dishes in the sink and go see Joan Crawford in a movie".
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Fact
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Brown graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1910 at age 19 with a double degree in mechanical and electrical engineering.
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During WWI Brown enlisted in the Army Air Corps as a flight instructor.
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After seeing that many of the finest pictures were produced by World Pictures and Maurice Tourneur, he found his way to Fort Lee, New Jersey and introduced himself to he director. The studio was looking for an assistant and took him on. Tourneur took him on and Brown remained with him for seven years.
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Brown is on record as stating that the happiest working conditions of his career were at 20th Century-Fox where he made the only non-MGM picture during the last 25 years of his career on double loan-out with Myrna Loy.
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The governor of Tennessee declared May 27, 1970 as Clarence Brown Day with the start of the inaugural film festival in the 626 Clarence Brown Theater on the campus of the University of Tennessee.
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Tied with Robert Altman and Alfred Hitchcock for the most nominations for best director (5) at the Academy Awards without a single win. Martin Scorsese had been part or this group before his win for The Departed (2006)on his 6th nomination.
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Was a fighter pilot in the U.S. Army Air Force during World War I.
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