Show v Hollywood THEY TIlEY DIDN'T RAISE THESE BOYS TO BE DE E DIRECTORS By y DAN THOMAS S NEA iEA Service Writer HOLLYWOOD Calif Call Oct 13 13 Two fathers who foresaw a great future in engineering filled the minds of two potential screen directors with y yA A G a ra N Ny y r r Milord lard Webb lop and Clarence Clar Clar- Clarence Clarence ence Brown Drown arc are engineers who be became be- be became became came directors in Hollywood mechanics And two boys became en en- en But Dut they couldn't stick it out out out- because their hearts were somewhere else Eventually both drifted into Hollywood got gat unimportant Jobs and became fast friends drawn together by the common ground from which they came Today those boys Clarence Brown Drown and Millard Webb are at the head of their profession though profession though they probably would have remained medi medi- mediocre mediocre mediocre ocre engineers all their lives Brown graduated from the Uni Uni- University University University of Tennessee with Bach Bach- Bachelor Bachelor Bachelor elor of Science degree in me me- mechanical mechanical and electrical engineer engineer- engineering ing He Ile went from one automo automo- automobile automobile automobile bile firm to another as an auto auto- automotive motive engineer Then the war broke out and he Joined the avia avia- aviation aviation aviation tion corps as an airplane engine expert and flying Instructor The signing of the armistice looked to Brown rown like a good lime time timeto to lo end his engineering career so he came to lo Hollywood His Ills first Job ob was as Maurice Tourneur's as- as assistant assistant and cutter where cutter where we will 1111 lease leae eave him to take a look at Webbs early arly career Webb was sent to the Mackay School of Mines in Reno Nev to become a civil engineer which he heId did Id although he never graduated from rom the school At the end of his lis first year jear ear he ran away with a railroad surveying sun c Ing crew During the he following two years jears ears he helped build 17 railroad bridges rid an v n miles of roadbed In the desert and mountains t of i 1 v- v I rI He lost what little taste he had hador for or the Job when his buddy J Jseph seph Painter was killed in hs a land land- landslide landslide landslide slide while building a nom inn c. c i i 1 he ic hopped a train for Hollywood lie Ile le started out to become an actOr accor but gave that up after a a. three weeks' weeks trial and secured a Job as asan asan asan an assistant director It was while both were assist assist- assistant assistant ant directors that Brown and Webb met The friendship started in those days of scanty living li has continued to these days when both are making salaries far exceeding President COOlidge's j yearly early wage Brown really had his first taste of genuine fame when he directed Norma Talmadge in He lie was so successful with it that Metro Mayer signed him himo to o wield the megaphone over John Gilbert and Greta Garbo in Flesh and the Devil which proved to tobe tobe tobe be a sensation Brown Is now making The Trail of 98 a pic pic- picture picture picture ture of oC the famous Alaskan gold rush which it is said will start a a. new vogue ogue in pictures Just as The Big Parade did Millard Webb is now one of the leading directors on the First National Na Na- National National lot hot and has a a number of original stories to his credit as aswell aswell well One OM of his most recent di directorial di- di directorial directorial achievements was Naughty but Nice starring Colleen Moore |