When Scotty Brown went to Hollywood in the 1920s he might have been seeking fame and fortune but he went out as a golfer and it was as a golf pro he was most active in those early years it would seem, teaching the game to Hollywood actors and actresses.
He was involved in an early talkie called Follow Thru from Paramount Pictures; a golfing musical with jazzy numbers and lots of pretty faces based on a stage production.
Brown’s own acting career came to a shuddering halt when he got tongue-tied in a scene with Claude Rains but in which film I haven’t been able to find out.
It’s very hard to discover anything much about Scotty during those early years but when the golf and the acting dried up he turned to creating a film distribution business. On the wall of his office hung a banner which read There’ll always be an England, aye and Scotland too.
His film business with its 2000 plus movies was popular with Hollywood’s motion picture stars who liked nothing more than an evening in watching movies. “That’s why you don’t see them so often at Ciro’s or Mocambo,” he said, “they’re home watching motion pictures.” (Ciro’s and Mocambo’s were nightclubs on Sunset Strip favoured by movie stars.)
Hollywood stars are known to be demanding and thought nothing of phoning Scotty Brown in the middle of the night looking for a film or part for their projectors. Frank Morgan (Francis Wuppermann), the wizard in the Wizard of Oz, was one of his demanding customers. John Wayne was another, once calling Scotty at three in the morning for help in repairing his film projector – “Scotty, the darn projector won’t turn over,” he shouted into the phone.
Many actors’ homes had screens in various rooms, including bathrooms, as well as, of course, outdoors by their swimming pools. Cary Grant was one star with a bathroom cum film theatre.
Jackie Coogan and Bette Davis
Stars appetite for films was virtually insatiable: on occasions Dick Haymes (singer, actor – There’s No Business Like Show Business) watched four films overnight while Jackie Coogan (the kid in Charlie Chaplin’s The Kid, Uncle Fester in The Addams Family), John Payne (Miracle on 34th Street) and Donald O’Connor (Singing in the Rain, Ragtime) watched a dozen over one weekend. Bing Crosby was another enthusiastic customer but Brown’s biggest film addict appeared to have been Lou Costello (Abbott and Costello) who had six projectors at home. Apparently when Mickey Rooney and his second wife split up all Rooney wanted to take away from the marriage was his projector and film collection.
Westerns were the most popular films in Hollywood with John Ford’s Stage Coach the most popular movie of all, and anything starring Cary Grant. Grant, himself, preferred to watch Buster Crabbe (Tarzan and Flash Gordon) and Johnny Mack Brown (Gunsmoke) but he also loved westerns, watching several each week.
Scotty took the Queen Mary home to Scotland in 1949 on a trip which mixed business with pleasure – visiting family in Aberdeen and Partick and purchasing a quantity of 16mm films for distribution back in America.
Roy Rogers gave Scotty Brown three solid gold figurines of his horse Trigger, with detachable saddles, and Scotty took models of these with him to Scotland in 1949 which he presented to the children of Aberdeen and Glasgow. I have no idea which organisations accepted Scotty Brown’s gifts but does anyone know where these Triggers are now?
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