Rowland Brown (November 6, 1900 – May 6, 1963), born Chauncey Rowland Brown in Canton, Ohio, was an American screenwriter and film director, whose career as a director ended in the early 1930s after he started many more films than he finished. He walked out of State's Attorney (1932), starring John Barrymore. He was abruptly replaced as director of The Scarlet Pimpernel. As a writer, he was credited with twenty or so films including two Academy Award nominations, one in the 11th Academy Awards for Best Original Story Angels with Dirty Faces and another in the 4th Academy Awards for Doorway to Hell.
May 6, 1963, Costa Mesa, California, United States
Place Of Birth
Akron, Ohio, USA
Height
6' (1.83 m)
Profession
Writer, Director, Miscellaneous Crew
Spouse
Karen van Ryan (m. 1942–1963)
Children
Daphne Browne, Craig Brown, Steven Brown, Rowland C.W. Brown, Megan Brown
Star Sign
Scorpio
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Fact
1
Studied at the University of Detroit and the Detroit School of Fine Arts.
2
Temperamental screenwriter and occasional director of the 1930s. Moved to Hollywood in the mid-'20s, finding work as a prop boy on the Universal lot. By 1926 he was working as a gagman for 'Reginald Denny'. He wrote several moderately successful gangster movies in the early 1930s, their "authentic feel" rumored to have been enhanced by his having been a bootlegger with mob ties during Prohibition. Career stalled after being fired, first from directing The Scarlet Pimpernel (1934) by Alexander Korda, then by David O. Selznick from A Star Is Born (1937). Little heard of after 1940.
$600,000
