Johnny Mack Brown — Johnny the Kid (1931)
"Come a' shootin'!"
That's the motto of Billy the Kid and of the six Brown brothers, the second of whom is John Mack.
Billy went gunning for men. Johnny and his five brothers are shooting at success. And the seven of them seem to get the things they want.
Playing the part of Billy the Kid has been the secret ambition of Johnny Mack Brown for several years. When he was given the role, Johnny threw into it all the enthusiasm and eagerness of the average American boy who satisfies his thirst for adventure and daring by devouring the stories of bandits and Indian hunters and highwaymen.John and his quintet of brothers are just ordinary American boys, brought up in a small town, living an average, normal life. Johnny's home town, Dothan, Alabama, boasts of a population of about fifteen thousand people. Father Brown owned Dothan's shoe store and took care of his merry, scrambling brood of youngsters in a big, white frame house on one of the quiet southern streets.
There are ten young Browns, four sisters having slipped in here and there between the six brothers. Harry, Estelle, John Mack, Henry Tolbert, William Wallace, Charles Frederick, David, Mary Louise, Elsa and Doris are the good, old down-South names which the elder Browns bestowed on their children.
The saga of Billy the Kid is the story of an abnormal American youth, a chap who, at the age of twenty-one, had killed twenty-one men. The saga of the six Brown Brothers is the story of a half dozen normal American boys who have worked, and are working, their ways through high school and college and into a real success in their early twenties.
"I’ve had a nice, comfortable home," Johnny drawled, his Billy the Kid boots swinging against the side of the big box on which he was sitting, "but it takes plenty of jack to feed and clothe ten children. Dad wanted us to go to college, every one of us, but we knew that it would be up to us to help out with the expenses.
"Harry is the only one who was faithless to old Alabam'. He went to Georgia Tech and was graduated there. That boy earned every penny of his way through school and was given the highest honors in his class. Now he has his own bond company in Atlanta. We all are sure mighty proud of Harry!" said Johnny Mack.
Harry is the oldest of the six brothers. He is the only one of the sextette who did not play football.
Harry, Johnny and Robert were the leaders of the Dothan gang. The trio stuck together through thick and thin, fought each other's battles, led the raids on the neighboring watermelon patches, read The Three Musketeers, and decided to go away to college and to be 'big guys.'
When John wanted to play football on the high school team, civil war raged within the Brown household. His mother, like all mothers, dreaded the thought of injuries to her son. The other brothers stood by Johnny and helped him to win his parents' consent.
The second Brown brother earned his way through high school. He helped his father in the store, did all sorts of odd jobs and still found time for football practice and games.
Then, in his senior year, the scouts from the southern, and some northern universities camped on Johnny's trail, extolling to him the virtues of their respective schools, trying to persuade him to bring his football genius to their gridirons.
It was Johnny's mother who decided that he should go to the University of Alabama. She was very ill at the time and she asked Johnny to stay as near home as possible. So Georgia Tech lost the second Brown and Johnny joined the team which later came to Los Angeles and opened the door to screen fame for Johnny.
Two years later Tolbert joined Johnny at Alabama, playing football and following in his All-American brother's footsteps. He is now in the automobile business in Detroit, striding rapidly toward success. The fourth brother, Billy, is a senior at Alabama. Fred is in high school and Dave is still struggling through the mazes of grammar school. But just ask them what they are going to do and they will chorus without a moment's hesitation, "Go to Alabama and play football."
The five brothers are proud of John, but deep in their hearts they feel that a darned good football coach was lost when Johnny decided to become a motion picture actor.
The elder Browns are sort of bewildered by the nights of their breed.
"But Mother and Dad never tried to tell us what they wanted us to do," Johnny was fingering the gun which had belonged to the real Billy the Kid, "they didn't care what we decided to do so long as we did it well and made a success of it."
Hollywood and screen success have failed to change Johnny Mack. He might still be living in Dothan, Alabama. He throws the same enthusiasm into making pictures that he would have thrown into making football teams if he had become the coach which he had intended to be before Fate and George Fawcett and the movies stepped into his life. After all, Harry is the best bond salesman in Atlanta and Tolbert is a cracker jack automobile man, so it's up to Johnny to make a success of the motion picture game if he wants to live up to the standards of his six brothers.
And that is the boy who is playing one of the most cold-blooded, yet soft-hearted, bad men in the history of American banditry.
"Every boy who ever lived played bandit at some time in his life, and every boy who ever lived read all the adventure stories he could find," Johnny remarked as he put Billy the Kid's gun back in his holster. "It's just human nature, I reckon, for us to like to hear about folks who do the things we wouldn't dare to do or wouldn't really want to do.
"That's why I was so tickled when they gave me the part of Billy. He's sort of a mixture of all the two-gun guys Harry and Tolbert and I used to read about. And best of all, he is a real person, not an imaginary one. It was the biggest kick of my life to go into the country where he actually lived, making scenes for the picture, and to listen to the old settlers who really knew Billy. I felt as if I were living in a paper-backed thriller!"
Billy the Kid left a trail of death and bloodshed.
The six Brown brothers are making a history of youthful success and accomplishment.
Johnny Mack Brown's football feats opened the door to screen fame.
Now Johnny is playing one of the juiciest parts ever offered to a young actor — the title role in Billy the Kid. Under King Vidor's direction young Mr. Brown is said to surpass himself in the character of the most lovable 'bad man' in the annals of American banditry. "I feel as if I were living in a paper-backed thriller, playing this part!" grins Johnny.
Gary Cooper, that likeable lad from out of the west, goes steadily on gathering new admirers and holding old ones. His next starring role will be in "Fighting Caravans." We know a secret! It is said that Gary Cooper and Lupe Vélez will be married some time soon.
Collection: Screenland Magazine, November 1930
Poised on the springboard, John Mack Brown is ready for anything — even praise from the critics. But while waiting for that he rests contentedly in the approval of his fans, whom he stirred to enthusiasm on his very first appearance.
Photo by: Clarence Sinclair Bull (1896–1979)
Collection: Picture Play Magazine, June 1930