Future Favorites — Allen Brook (1938) 🇺🇸
Before Allen Brook signed a long-term contract with Columbia Studios he was a furniture salesman in a Hollywood Boulevard store… and was making all of sixteen dollars a week… helping Hollywood matrons find just the right lampshade or end table… he is well on his way toward being one of the better-known actors among Hollywood’s newest crop of handsome juveniles…
by Craig Morgan
His real name is Joseph Allen, Jr., the only son of the well-known stage comedian… [Joseph Allen Sr.] the youth came to Hollywood originally to visit his sire… but decided to stay long enough to see if he could find a place for himself on the screen… and when he did his first official act was changing his name to Allen Brook for he had no intention of using his father’s fame as a stepping-stone… tall, dark and handsome he made his Columbia debut in “Motor Madness”…
Born in Boston, Massachusetts, on a March 30… twenty-one years ago… Allen comes of a distinguished theatrical family… for in addition to his father… two of his uncles… Tom and James Marlowe… are well known in the world of the theatre… the young Columbia player began his own histrionic career when he was five years old… and he kept in trim by writing plays during his school days… he spent summer vacations appearing with stock companies… he received most of his schooling in Bay Shore, Long Island, educational institutions…
To be a big-time automobile racing driver was Allen’s first ambition… and now he is eager to build the perfect automobile to combine safety, speed and economy… he is a one-sixth partner in a Long Island machine-shop… which specializes in the building of racing cars and speedboats… all of which gave him the perfect background… for his first Columbia picture…
Allen’s professional experience includes five seasons in summer stock… two years of which were spent managing his own company… he has appeared in such popular plays as Paris Bound, Holiday, The Bishop Mishehaves and The Fool… he has also worked in dramatic sketches on the radio… his first motion picture was “Holy Terror” with Jane Withers, his second “Career Woman” with Claire Trevor which prefaced his Columbia contract…
More than six feet tall young Brook has hazel eyes and brown hair… he is of Irish descent… his favorite poet is Rudyard Kipling… he keeps in condition with handball… never misses an automobile race… lives in a small apartment… and drives a six-year-old roadster… admits he’s a speed fanatic… likes to fly… thinks he would have been an automobile engineer if his histrionic ambitions hadn’t materialized.
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Collection: Motion Picture Magazine, March 1938
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