Known as the "last romantic idealist" of the movies, Clarence Brown was one of MGM's top directors during that studio's Golden Age, the mid-1920s through the mid-'50s. A specialist in both glamorous star vehicles and stirring rural dramas, Brown worked with Greta Garbo more often than any other director (seven times) and guided Elizabeth Taylor to stardom in National Velvet (1944). He also brought out the best in Norma Shearer and Joan Crawford; produced and directed studio head Louis B. Mayer's favorite film, The Human Comedy (1943); and created one of the screen's most enduring family classics in his film version of Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' The Yearling (1946). Brown was Oscar®-nominated as Best Director six times.

Born in Clinton, Mass., Brown began developing his romantic pictorial style while working as an assistant to director Maurice Tourneur. United Artists' The Eagle (1925), starring Rudolph Valentino, was the film that caught the eye of MGM, where Brown would work the rest of his career. He first directed Garbo in Flesh and the Devil (1926), quickly winning the shy star's trust with his own quiet way. Brown guided Garbo through several of her most luminous roles, including the title character in Anna Christie (1930), her first talkie.

Although most of Brown's films were unconcerned with social problems, a striking exception is his film version of William Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust (1949), which becomes a plea for racial tolerance in its account of a black man unjustly accused of murder in a Southern town. The TCMdb entry for it notes, "Harsh but sensitive, Intruder in the Dust tackled a controversial subject and perfectly captured the nuances of small-town bigotry. (As a young man, Brown had been living in Atlanta during that city's 1906 race riots and the memory of what he observed influenced his direction.) As a follow-up, the director turned to fancy with Angels in the Outfield, a charming fantasy about a baseball team that may have benefited from divine intervention. The following year, Brown directed his last film, Plymouth Adventure, a drama about the arrival of the Pilgrims in Massachusetts. He retired and lived off his real estate investments until his death in 1987 at age 97."

by Roger Fristoe