Tod Browning (born Charles Albert Browning Jr.; July 12, 1880 – October 6, 1962) was an American film director, film actor, screenwriter, vaudeville performer, and carnival sideshow and circus entertainer. He directed a number of films of various genres between 1915 and 1939, but was primarily known for horror films. Some film writers have referred to Browning as "the Edgar Allan Poe of cinema".
Browning's career spanned the silent and sound film eras. He is known as the director of Dracula (1931), Freaks (1932), and his silent film collaborations with Lon Chaney and Priscilla Dean.
Early life
Charles Albert Browning, Jr., was born in Louisville, Kentucky, on July 12, 1880, the second son of Charles Albert and Lydia Browning. Charles Albert Sr., "a bricklayer, carpenter and machinist," provided his family with a middle-class and Baptist household. Browning's uncle, the baseball star Pete "Louisville Slugger" Browning saw his sobriquet conferred on the iconic baseball bat. Like his uncle, Browning was alcoholic from a young age.Alford, 1995: "Browning's baseball-playing uncle Pete was responsible for the development of the Louisville slugger..." And: "Unfortunately for his biographers, outside of anecdote, little evidence remains of Tod's boyhood life and family relations."
Circus, sideshow and vaudeville Browning was fascinated by circus and carnival life as a child. At the age of 16, and before finishing high school, he ran away from his well-to-do family to join a traveling circus.Brogan, 2008: "Browning had been fascinated with circus culture from childhood."Eaker, 2016: "He had run away from an affluent home at the age of 16 to join a carnival sideshow and the dancer he had fallen in love with."Rosenthal, 1975 p. 7: Born July 12, 1880, in Louisville, Kentucky. "...according to most sources...ran away from home at the age of sixteen without finishing high school...joined a circus..."Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 10: "...ran away with a traveling carnival when he was only 16..."
Initially hired as a roustabout, he soon began serving as a "spieler" (a barker at sideshows) and by 1901 was performing song and dance routines for Ohio and Mississippi riverboat entertainment, as well as acting as a contortionist for the Manhattan Fair and Carnival Company.Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 10: "...a manager and roustabout..." And: Manhattan Company "contortionist." Browning developed a live burial act in which he was billed as "The Living Hypnotic Corpse", and performed as a clown with the Ringling Brothers circus. He would later draw on these early experiences to inform his cinematic inventions.Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 10: "...a significant number of his movies [are] set in the world of the circus and the sideshow [and] Browning knew very well the milieu" he portrayed. And: See here for comment on living corpse routine.Barson, 2021: "Browning...found steady employment in circuses and carnivals as a clown, contortionist, magician's assistant, and barker."Brogan, 2008: "Browning...reportedly became a Ringling Brothers clown, a contortionist..."
In 1906, Browning was briefly married to Amy Louis Stevens in Louisville.Alford, 1995: "Browning married Amy Louise Stevens in 1906, but the union was short-lived since, according to some accounts, Browning was a no-good, money-borrowing layabout. Browning apparently abandoned his wife for vaudeville." Adopting the professional name "Tod" Browning (tod is the German word for death),Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 10: "...baptized and reinvented himself as 'Tod' Browning..." And: Herzogenrath provides English-German translation the tod = death. Browning abandoned his wife and became a vaudevillian, touring extensively as both a magician's assistant and a blackface comedian in an act called The Lizard and the Coon with comedian Roy C. Jones. He appeared in a Mutt and Jeff sketch in the 1912 burlesque revue The World of Mirth with comedian Charles Murray.Rosenthal, 1975 p. 7: "He...later entered vaudeville, touring extensively in such acts as The World of Mirth, 'Mutt and Jeff' and 'Lizard and Coon'"Barson, 2021: "After working in vaudeville as a blackface comedian, he was hired for the long-running burlesque revue The Whirl of Mirth, in which he appeared in sketches based on popular comic-strip characters of the period."Brogan, 2008: "...a magician's assistant."
Film actor: 1909–1913 In 1909, after 13 years performing in carnivals and vaudeville circuits, Browning, age 29, transitioned to film acting.Robinson, 1968 p. 125: "Browning was a vaudeville comic at the time he went into movies as an actor at the Biograph Studios. Browning's work as a comedic film actor began in 1909 when he performed with director and screenwriter Edward Dillon in film shorts. In all, Browning was cast in over 50 of these one- or two-reeler slapstick productions.
Film historian Boris Henry observed that "Browning's experience as a slapstick actor [became] incorporated into his career as a filmmaker." Dillon later provided many of the screenplays for the early films that Browning would direct.Henry, 2006 p. 41Herzogenrath, 2006 pp. 10–11: "In 1909, Browning made his transition from the carnival to Hollywood (sic) [New York City], where he started as an actor in Edward Dillon's slapstick shorts." And: "Before becoming a film director, Tod Browning acted in at least 50 short slapstick movies, working with actors he would later direct..." A number of actors whom Browning performed with in his early acting career would later appear in his own pictures, many of whom served their apprenticeships with Keystone Cops director Mack Sennett, among them Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling, Polly Moran, Wheeler Oakman, Raymond Griffith, Kalla Pasha, Mae Busch, Wallace MacDonald and Laura La Varnie.Henry, 2006 p. 41: "...some of those who played in Tod Browning's movies have a slapstick background, in particular, those who acted in Mack Sennett's Keystone films [among them] Wallace Beery, Ford Sterling, Polly Moran, Wheeler Oakman, Raymond Griffith, Kalla Pasha, Mae Busch, Wallace MacDonald and Laura La Varnie..." And: "Edward Dillion was the author of most of Browning's [early] short films..."
In 1913, Browning was hired by film director D. W. Griffith at Biograph Studios in New York City, first appearing as an undertaker in Scenting a Terrible Crime (1913).Brogan, 2008: "He segued into acting and directing in New York City, where D.W. Griffith hired him at the Biograph Studio..."Rosenthal, 1975 p. 13: NOTE: Rosenthal appears to mistakenly report that Browning ``entered motion pictures in either 1913 or 1914 (depending upon the source)..." [parenthetical remark in original]. Perhaps Rosenthal associates "entering" with "directing " film. Browning, according to Herzogenrath and Boris Henry, both report this shift to film (acting) took place earlier.Barson, 2021: "In 1913 he was signed by the Biograph Company, where under the supervision of D.W. Griffith he was featured in a series of knockabout comedies."Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 11: At Biograph "Browning met D. W. Griffith, and both men left Biograph for the Reliance-Majestic studio in 1913."Robinson, 1968 p. 125: Browning ``played in Griffith's Mother and the Law (1919)..." Both Griffith and Browning departed Biograph and New York that same year and together joined Reliance-Majestic Studios in Hollywood, California.Herzogenrath, 2006 p. 11: "...both men left Biograph for Reliance-Majestic in 1913..."Towlson, 2017 Part 2: "... fellow Kentuckian, D.W Griffith, took Browning to Hollywood as an actor." Browning was featured in several Reliance-Majestic films, including The Wild Girl (1917).Rosenthal, 1975 p. 8Solomon, 2006 pp. 49–50: "After Browning went to work as film comedian for another Louisville native, D. W. Griffith, at the Biograph movie studios in New York, his beginning the carnival mileu (italics) were often highlighted – long dash an association that would continue throughout his entire career."
Early film directing and screenwriting: 1914–1916 Film historian Vivian Sobchack noted that "a number of one- or two-reelers are attributed to Browning from 1914 to 1916" and biographer Michael Barson credits Browning's directorial debut to the one-reeler drama The Lucky Transfer, released in March 1915.Sobchack, 2006 pp. 22, 37: "Internet Movies DataBase lists 15 films that Browning supposedly directed between 1914 and 1916..."Barson, 2021: "In 1915 he made his directorial debut with the one-reel silent The Lucky Transfer."Alford, 1995: "In 1913 Tod Browning became an actor in the movies, appearing in a rash of Biograph one-reelers ...Within two years he was directing for the Majestic Motion Picture Corporation."Towlson, 2012: "Browning began his career as a director in 1917, after working as an actor for D. W. Griffith."
Browning's career almost ended when, intoxicated, he drove his vehicle into a railroad crossing and collided with a locomotive. Browning suffered grievous injuries, as did passenger George Siegmann. A second passenger, actor Elmer Booth, was killed instantly.Towlson, 2017 Part 2: "...a car crash in 1915 which resulted in the death of a passenger, Elmer Booth. Browning was driving under the influence when his car hit a train at a railway crossing. Browning himself suffered serious injuries: a shattered right leg, unspecified internal injuries and likely the loss of his front teeth."Barson, 2021: "In June of that year , while driving drunk, he collided at high speed with a moving train. Browning and actor George A. Siegmann were seriously injured; actor Elmer Booth was killed. Film historian Jon Towlson notes that "alcoholism was to contribute to a major trauma in Browning's personal life that would shape his thematic obsessions...After 1915, Browning began to direct his traumatic experience into his work – radically reshaping it in the process."Towlson, 2017 Part 2 According to biographers David J. Skal and Elias Savada, the tragic event transformed Browning's creative outlook:
Indeed, the thirty-one films that Browning wrote and directed between 1920 and 1939 were, with few exceptions, melodramas.Sobchack, 2006 p. 22: Exceptions comprise "two serious dramas, two romantic films and one horror film. All others are melodramas of various types."
Browning's injuries likely precluded a further career as an actor.Brogan, year: "A car accident in 1915 ended his acting career, and he concentrated on writing during his convalescence."Towlson, 2017 Part 2: "...Hollywood insiders of the time, such as director George E. Marshall, have asserted that Browning's injuries to some extent limited his physical activities as an adult. Whatever the true nature and extent of his injuries, the trauma that Browning experienced was genuine and profound." During his protracted convalescence,Towlson, 2017: "Browning suffered...a shattered right leg, unspecified internal injuries and likely the loss of his front teeth." Browning turned to writing screenplays for Reliance-Majestic.Sobchack, 2006 p. 35: "Browning, in is early career, worked in the story department of Majestic Pictures..."Barson, 2021: "During Browning's long convalescence, he turned to screenwriting..." Upon his recovery, Browning joined Griffith's film crew on the set of Intolerance (1916) as an assistant director and appeared in a bit part for the production's "modern story" sequence.Rosenthal, 1975 p. 8Barson, 2021: "After his recovery, he had a small role in Griffith's Intolerance (1916) while also functioning as an assistant director on it."Robinson, 1968 p. 125: Browning "...was one of the master's (Griffith's) assistant on Intolerance (1916)..."
Director: early silent feature films, 1917–1919