In that year's Rose Bowl, he earned Most Valuable Player honors after scoring two of his team's three touchdowns in an upset win over the heavily favored Washington Huskies.

[8] After he finished college, he sold insurance and later coached the freshman running backs on the University of Alabama's football team.

[9] Brown's good looks and powerful physique saw him portrayed on Wheaties cereal boxes and in 1927, brought an offer for motion picture screen tests[5] that resulted in a long and successful career in Hollywood.

Brown went on to make several more top-flight movies under the name John Mack Brown, including The Secret Six (1931) with Wallace Beery, Jean Harlow, and Clark Gable, as well as the legendary Lost Generation celebration of alcohol, The Last Flight (1931), and was being groomed by MGM as a leading man until being abruptly replaced on Laughing Sinners in 1931, with all his scenes reshot, substituting rising star Clark Gable in his place.

[11] Rechristened "Johnny Mack Brown" in the wake of this extremely serious career downturn, he made low-budget westerns for independent producers and he never regained his former status.

After starring in four serials, in 1939 he launched a series of 29 B-westerns over the next four years, all co-starring Fuzzy Knight as his comic sidekick, and the last seven teaming him with Tex Ritter.

This is considered the peak of his B-western career, thanks to the studio's superior production values; noteworthy titles include Son of Roaring Dan, Raiders of San Joaquin and The Lone Star Trail, the latter featuring a young Robert Mitchum as the muscle heavy.

A fan of Mexican music, Brown showcased the talents of guitarist Francisco Mayorga and The Guadalajara Trio in films like Boss of Bullion City and The Masked Rider.

Brown moved to Monogram Pictures in 1943 to replace that studio's cowboy star Buck Jones, who had died months before.

When Monogram abandoned its brand name in 1952 (in favor of its deluxe division, Allied Artists), Johnny Mack Brown retired from the screen.