KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Six-time Academy Award-nominee Clarence Brown built a gold-plated career that stretched from silent films to the glory years of the talkies. And it all started in Knoxville.
The Knoxville High School and University of Tennessee graduate is being feted Aug. 16-20 with a film fest and historic display that features guests who worked with him and have charted his life.
WBIR is a sponsor. The Knox County Public Library is staging many of the events.
The event marks the 50th anniversary of a 1973 film festival that honored Brown, who was born in Massachusetts but grew up in Knoxville. He died in 1987 in California at age 97.
Brown directed such stars as Rudolph Valentino, Greta Garbo, Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Elizabeth Taylor and Gregory Peck. He was a pilot, an engineer, a car dealer and a wealthy landholder.
Motion pictures for which he received an Academy Award directing nomination include "Anna Christie", "The Human Comedy", "National Velvet" and "The Yearling".
Some of Brown's most famous films will be screened at either the Tennessee Theatre or the University of Tennessee's Clarence Brown Theatre, which opened in 1970 thanks to a generous donation from Brown and his wife, Marian.
The events are free. You'll find more information here.
An exhibit of East Tennessee's ties to and representation in the movies is also open to the public during the week at the East Tennessee History Center downtown. It's called "Lights, Camera, East Tennessee".
Here are some of the specific events planned to honor Brown:
*4 p.m. Friday, Aug. 18: Keynote address by Brown biographer Gwenda Young. UT Hodges Library Auditorium, 1015 Volunteer Blvd. A behind-the-scenes tour of the Clarence Brown Theatre will follow. And then there'll be an outdoor screening of Brown's "National Velvet" outside the Clarence Brown Theatre on campus.
*9 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 19: History Hootenanny open house at the history center downtown. It's being held in conjunction with the library system's Clarence Brown Film Festival. The East Tennessee Historical Society's hootenanny is a celebration of East Tennessee history and film. There'll be live music, activities for children and walking tours, among other events.
*Starting at noon Saturday, Aug. 19, free screenings of Clarence Brown films at Tennessee Theatre including "The Yearling", "Anna Karenina", and "The Signal Tower", a silent film.
*1:30 p.m. Sunday, panel discussion about Brown's "Intruder in the Dust"; 2 p.m. screening of that film. Free 5 p.m. screening of "The Eagle", featuring silent legend Rudolph Valentino.
