Early Life and Career
Born in Worcester, Massachusetts, on January 26, 1892, Brown was one of ten children. She graduated from the Worcester School of Speech and Music, and was one of the oldest performers active in television at the time of her death. In 1940 after a stint in New York City she became known as "one of the world's greatest elocutionists". After moving to Jacksonville, Florida, she began producing, writing, directing, and acting in numerous plays. For 15 years she was a drama teacher at her own studio as well as at Edward Waters College, and had become known as Florida's "Dean of Drama" before numerous experiences with racism in the South directed her decision to leave for Hollywood, where she became a regular performer at the Ebony Showcase Theatre.
By the time she acquired the role of 'Mother' Jefferson, she had accumulated a long list of acting credentials that spanned over 50 years appearing in such movies as The Learning Tree, the Blacksploitation cult film Sugar Hill, The Liberation of L.B. Jones, The Great White Hope, Ghetto Woman, and a starring role in Brother John played opposite Sidney Poitier. Her TV career went back to what critics call 'the golden age of television' including appearances on the highly acclaimed Playhouse 90 series. Besides The Jeffersons her television credits included A Dream for Christmas, the CBS Playhouse production of The People Next Door, the NBC Matinee Theater's Run for Your Life, Cowboy in Africa, Name of the Game, Mod Squad, Night Gallery, and All in the Family. Though highly respected by many influential people in the film industry as a dedicated craftsman, she had gained no fame until the role of 'Mother' Jefferson quickly endeared her to television audiences throughout the United States and Canada where she became an instant celebrity.
Read more about this topic: Zara Cully
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or career:
“... business training in early life should not be regarded solely as insurance against destitution in the case of an emergency. For from business experience women can gain, too, knowledge of the world and of human beings, which should be of immeasurable value to their marriage careers. Self-discipline, co-operation, adaptability, efficiency, economic management,—if she learns these in her business life she is liable for many less heartbreaks and disappointments in her married life.”
—Hortense Odlum (1892–?)
“Early to rise and early to bed makes a male healthy and wealthy and dead.”
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“We quaff the cup of life with eager haste without draining it, instead of which it only overflows the brim—objects press around us, filling the mind with their magnitude and with the throng of desires that wait upon them, so that we have no room for the thoughts of death.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“He was at a starting point which makes many a man’s career a fine subject for betting, if there were any gentlemen given to that amusement who could appreciate the complicated probabilities of an arduous purpose, with all the possible thwartings and furtherings of circumstance, all the niceties of inward balance, by which a man swings and makes his point or else is carried headlong.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)