There’s an interesting obit in today’s NYT for Michael Brown, who passed away on June 11th at 93.
Brown (no relation, AFAIK) was one of the major figures in the “industrial musical”, which I have touched on previously.
Mr. Brown, whose clients included the J. C. Penney Company, Singer sewing machines and DuPont, was among the genre’s most sought-after creators. His shows — he supplied music, lyrics and direction and often took part as a singer — were known, Mr. Young said, for “their high quality and general buoyancy and fun.”
More:
His most widely seen show was without doubt “Wonderful World of Chemistry.” Presented in the DuPont pavilion at the 1964 World’s Fair in New York, it was a rare example of an industrial musical open to the public. The show, written, produced and directed by Mr. Brown, was performed at least 40 times a day, by at least eight companies, for months on end.
If that was all Brown had done, this would still be a pretty interesting obit. But there’s another story: Brown and his wife had a good pot of money, and knew an aspiring writer who was living in New York and having trouble balancing her writing and her job.
So for Christmas of 1956, they gave their friend a present:
…an envelope with her name on it in the branches of their tree.
“I opened it and read: ‘You have one year off from your job to write whatever you please. Merry Christmas.'”
That writer was Harper Lee. And now you know…the rest of the story.
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