![The Yale Puppeteers](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a0/The_Yale_Puppeteers.jpg)
Forman Brown (January 8, 1901 – January 10, 1996) was one of the world's leaders in puppet theatre in his day, as well as an important early
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late 1 ...
novelist. He was a member of the
Yale Puppeteers and the driving force behind
Turnabout Theatre The Turnabout Theatre was a company of marionette puppeteers who performed in Hollywood from 1941 through 1956. The company's shows began with marionette performances, and concluded with a revue.
The name of the theater derives in part from the fa ...
. He was born in
Otsego, Michigan
Otsego is a city in Allegan County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 3,956 at the 2010 census. The city is within Otsego Township, but is administratively autonomous.
Otsego is situated on M-89 about three miles (5 km) w ...
, in 1901 and died in 1996, two days after his 95th birthday. Brown briefly taught at
North Carolina State College, followed by an extensive tour of Europe.
Forman's Yale Puppeteers, which he established upon graduating from
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
(class of 1922), opened a puppet theatre in Los Angeles in 1941 (the Turnabout Theater) that attracted celebrity attention and support from some of Hollywood's biggest names, e.g.,
Greta Garbo
Greta Garbo (born Greta Lovisa Gustafsson; 18 September 1905 – 15 April 1990) was a Swedish-American actress. Regarded as one of the greatest screen actresses, she was known for her melancholic, somber persona, her film portrayals of tragedy, ...
,
Colleen Moore,
Marie Dressler
Marie Dressler (born Leila Marie Koerber, November 9, 1868 – July 28, 1934) was a Canadian stage and screen actress, comedian, and early silent film and Depression-era film star. In 1914, she was in the first full-length film comedy. She ...
,
Mary Pickford
Gladys Marie Smith (April 8, 1892 – May 29, 1979), known professionally as Mary Pickford, was a Canadian-American stage and screen actress and producer with a career that spanned five decades. A pioneer in the US film industry, she co-founde ...
and
Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Elton Fairbanks Sr. (born Douglas Elton Thomas Ullman; May 23, 1883 – December 12, 1939) was an American actor, screenwriter, director, and producer. He was best known for his swashbuckling roles in silent films including '' The Thie ...
, as well as other notable figures including
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...
and
Aimee Semple McPherson. Brown wrote all the songs and sketches for the troupe's productions. Regular performers included
Elsa Lanchester
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986) was a British-American actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.Obituary ''Variety'', 31 December 1986.
Lanchester studied dance as a child and after the Fir ...
and
Odetta
Odetta Holmes (December 31, 1930 – December 2, 2008), known as Odetta, was an American singer, actress, guitarist, lyricist, and a civil rights activist, often referred to as "The Voice of the Civil Rights Movement". Her musical repertoire co ...
.
Bette Midler
Bette Midler (;''Inside the Actors Studio'', 2004 born December 1, 1945) is an American singer, actress, comedian and author. Throughout her career, which spans over five decades, Midler has received List of awards and nominations received by Be ...
sang one of Forman's songs, ''Mrs. Pettibone'', at a Los Angeles AIDS benefit.
Along with Yale Puppeteers Harry Burnett and Richard Brandon (1905 – May 4, 1985) (Brown's lifelong lover), Brown launched Turnabout Theatre in 1941 as "a vehicle for performing both puppet plays and revues for adults."
[A Remembrance of Forman Brown http://www.sagecraft.com/puppetry/bios/FormanBrown.html] Turnabout Theatre was a highly popular puppetry venue until its dissolution in 1956. Reversible seats were installed in the theatre so that after the puppet shows were performed at one end of the auditorium, the puppeteers asked the audience to "turnabout" their seats for the Turnabout revue staged at the opposite end of the auditorium.
In 1933, he wrote ''
Better Angel'', under the pseudonym Richard Meeker, about a young man coming to terms with his homosexuality. The novel is regarded as "the first American novel to present the 'gay' experience in a healthy light."
When it was reprinted in 1995, under the assumption that the author was no more alive, Brown stepped forward and acknowledged the novel was heavily autobiographic: the main character, Kurt, was the same Forman Brown; one of the main character's love interests, Derry, was Brown's cousin, Harry Burnett; Kurt's main love interest, David, was Richard Brandon; another of Kurt's lovers, Tony, was actor
Alexander Kirkland.
Broadway songs
* ''
Home Sweet Homer
''Home Sweet Homer'' is a 1976 musical with a book by Roland Kibbee and Albert Marre, lyrics by Charles Burr and Forman Brown, and music by Mitch Leigh.
Originally called ''Odyssey'', it is one of the most notorious flops in Broadway theatre ...
'' (4 January 1976) , lyrics by Forman Brown
* ''Music in My Heart'' (2 October 1947 - 24 January 1948) , lyrics by Forman Brown
* ''The Red Mill'' (16 October 1945 - 18 January 1947) , additional lyrics by Forman Brown
He also wrote the book and lyrics for the Richard Rodgers/Lincoln Center revival of "The Merry Widow."
FilmographyInternet Movie DataBase
/ref>
* ''
I Am Suzanne!'' (1933) , uncredited songwriter (with
Friedrich Hollaender
Friedrich Hollaender (in exile also Frederick Hollander; 18 October 189618 January 1976) was a German film composer and author.
Life and career
He was born in London to a Jewish family, where his father, operetta composer Victor Hollaender, w ...
): "Gay St. Moritz Is the Place", "Eski-olay-lio-mo"
* ''Bandits and Ballads'' (1934) , writer
* ''An Old Spanish Onion'' (1935) , writer
Published works
* ''The Generous Jefferson Bartleby Jones'' (1991),
* ''Small Wonder: The Story of the Yale Puppeteers and the Turnabout Theatre'' (Scarecrow Press, 1980),
* ''The Pie-Eyed Piper and Other Impertinent Plays for Puppets'' (Greenberg Publisher, 1933)
* ''
Better Angel'' (Greenberg Publisher, 1933), written under pseudonym Richard Meeker
* ''Punch's Progress'' (The Macmillan Company, 1936)
References
Further reading
* Smith, Larry (1996)
A Remembrance of Forman Brown The Puppetry Home Page.
External links
*
* (under pseudonym "Richard Meeker"). Public Domain on
LibriVox
LibriVox is a group of worldwide volunteers who read and record public domain texts, creating free public domain audiobooks for download from their website and other digital library hosting sites on the internet. It was founded in 2005 by Hugh Mc ...
(February 9, 2010).
Full online version of ''Better Angel''(under pseudonym "Richard Meeker") by the
George A. Smathers Libraries
The George A. Smathers Libraries of the University of Florida constitute one of the largest university library systems in the United States. The system includes eight of the nine libraries of the University of Florida and provides primary support ...
,
University of Florida
The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...
.
Turnabout Theater Virtual Tourat the
Los Angeles Public Library
The Los Angeles Public Library system (LAPL) is a public library system in Los Angeles, California. The system holds more than six million volumes, and with around 19 million residents in the Los Angeles Metropolitan area, it serves the large ...
.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Forman
American puppeteers
20th-century American novelists
University of Michigan alumni
1901 births
1996 deaths
American gay writers
LGBT people from Michigan
American LGBT novelists
American male novelists
People from Otsego, Michigan
20th-century American male writers
20th-century American LGBT people