Other highlights of his work in film were his portrayal of Captain Brackett in Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1958 movie version of the 1949 Broadway musical South Pacific, and as park caretaker George Lemon in the classic courtroom drama, Anatomy of a Murder (1959).
[1] Brown's first leading role on Broadway was as Jimmy Ridgeway in Lewis E. Gensler's 1928 musical Ups-a Daisy.
[4] In 1941 Brown had the biggest critical flop of his career, starring in the title role of the short lived Broadway musical Viva O'Brien; a creation of the composer María Grever.
[3] He returned to Broadway with better success as the press agent Bob Becket in George S. Kaufman's Hollywood Pinafore in 1945.
[1] From 1955–1957, Brown starred as Van Buren, the good natured manager of the Washington Senators baseball team, in Richard Adler and Jerry Ross musical Damn Yankees.
One of the early films to experiment with sound, it was deemed a "novelty chatter routine that's too smart for the average picture audience.
[7][11] This was followed by supporting roles in the feature films Let's Talk It Over (1934), The Love Captive (1934), and Sweet Surrender (1935); all for Universal Pictures.
[1] In 1951 Brown made his television debut on the anthology series Pulitzer Prize Playhouse in the episode "Portrait of a President"; a tele-play about Andrew Jackson's presidential election based on the Pulitzer Prize winning biography by Marquis James.