Brown was born on July 28, 1891[3] in Holgate, Ohio, near Toledo, into a large family of Welsh descent.

He quickly became a favorite with family audiences,[2] and shot to stardom after appearing in the first all-color, all-talking musical comedy On with the Show (1929).

He starred in a number of lavish Technicolor musical comedies, including Sally (1929), Hold Everything (1930), Song of the West (1930), and Going Wild (1930).

In Fireman, Save My Child (1932), he played a member of the St. Louis Cardinals, and in both Elmer, the Great (1933) with Patricia Ellis and Claire Dodd and Alibi Ike (1935) with Olivia de Havilland, he portrayed ballplayers with the Chicago Cubs.

He went on to make in The Circus Clown (again with Patricia Ellis) and 6 Day Bike Rider with Maxine Doyle.

The writing was already on the wall in mid-1936, when a magazine reported that "Joe E. Brown is making his next-to-last picture for Warner Brothers.

By November trade publisher Pete Harrison cautioned exhibitors that "Joe E. Brown [is] not in the employ of this company for the 1936-37 season.

In 1942, Captain Don E. Brown was killed when his Douglas A-20 Havoc crashed near Palm Springs, California.

[9] Even before the USO was organized, Brown spent a great deal of time traveling, at his own expense, to entertain troops in the South Pacific, including Guadalcanal, New Zealand, and Australia, as well as the Caribbean and Alaska.

“I took over the part in the New York company when Frank Fay, the originator, gave it up, and played it seven months before it went on the road.

[2][12] In 1951 he starred as the main character, the widower Samuel Rilling, in the William Roos, Jack Lawrence, and Don Walker Broadway musical Courtin' Time.

[13] In 1954, Brown appeared in Milestones of Motoring, a made-for-television industrial musical produced by Cinécraft Productions, with Merv Griffin and Rita Farrell.

[14] He had a cameo in Around the World in 80 Days (1956), as the Fort Kearney stationmaster talking to Fogg (David Niven) and his entourage in a small town in Nebraska.

His best known postwar role was that of aging millionaire Osgood Fielding III in Billy Wilder's 1959 comedy Some Like It Hot.

Brown performed several dance routines in the film, and famed choreographer Gower Champion appeared along with first wife Marge.

On April 14, 1925, radio station WBZ (AM) broadcast a local Major League baseball game for the first time.

And the radio critic for the New Britain (CT) Daily Herald wrote that "It is too bad that Joe E. Brown, who announced the game yesterday, could not fill that place during the entire season," noting that Brown not only described the game well but also offered amusing and interesting anecdotes in the process.

Joe L. Brown's '71 Pirates featured baseball's first starting lineup consisting of only Black and Latino players.

Later he traveled additional thousands of miles telling the story of PONY League, hoping to interest adults in organizing baseball programs for young people.

He was a fan of thoroughbred horse racing, a regular at the racetracks in Del Mar and Santa Anita.

Zack Mosley, creator of the comic strip The Adventures of Smilin' Jack, tributed Brown with the fictional lookalike character Flannelmouth Don; an air show announcer who did not need a microphone to be heard over the roar of multiple plane engines.

[citation needed] Brown was caricatured in the Disney cartoons Mickey's Gala Premiere (1933), Mother Goose Goes Hollywood (1938), and The Autograph Hound (1939); all contain a scene in which he is seen laughing so loud that his mouth opens extremely wide.

The couple had four children: two sons, Don Evan Brown (December 25, 1916 – October 8, 1942; captain in the United States Army Air Force, who was killed in the crash of an A-20B Havoc bomber while serving as a ferry pilot)[25] and Joe LeRoy "Joe L." Brown (September 1, 1918 – August 15, 2010), and two daughters, Mary Katherine Ann (b.

For his contributions to the film industry, Brown was inducted into the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960 with a motion pictures star located at 1680 Vine Street.