Teddy Brown (born Abraham Himmelbrand, 25 May 1900 – 29 April 1946) was an American entertainer and musician who spent the latter part of his life performing in Britain.
At a performance with Earl Fuller's Rector Novelty Orchestra at the Brunswick Hotel in Lancaster, NY, he was introduced as the leading marimba soloist of the world and played four-mallet arrangements on a Deagan Marimba-Xylophone No.
In 1927, the UK division of Lee de Forest's Phonofilm made a short film of Brown playing this instrument.
Brown's rapid-fire style, performing on fast-paced tunes, was an early influence on percussionist and bandleader Spike Jones, who would launch his own career a decade later.
As Brown's considerable percussive skills and fame in the UK spread, he appeared in an early sound feature-length movie in 1930, co-directed by a young Alfred Hitchcock, titled Elstree Calling, a musical variety review that answered Paul Whiteman's music review feature film of the same year, King of Jazz, with both films featuring early colour sequences.
He was King Rat in 1946, although his term was cut short as he died of a heart attack in his hotel room in Birmingham in 1946, at age 45, after appearing in a concert at the Wolverhampton Hippodrome.