- In 1944, his daughter Mary Katherine was injured in a car accident and near death. There were so many other car accidents that night that there were not enough doctors at the hospital to care for her. Brown ran around the hospital trying to find someone to help him until finally a doctor, tired and ready to go home, recognized Brown and agreed to help his doctor. He treated her for seven hours, saving her life.
- An ardent opponent of the Nazi regime, in 1939 Brown testified before the House Immigration Committee in support of a bill that would allow 20,000 German-Jewish refugee children into the United States. He would later adopt two German-Jewish refugee girls himself, naming them Mary Katherine Ann (born 1930) and Kathryn Francis (born 1934).
- His comical face and satchel-sized mouth seemed to overshadow the fact that Brown was a remarkably gifted athlete and had an almost deceptively ripped physique, which he maintained throughout his entire life. An example of his physical fitness can be seen in during the boxing match in the film Son of a Sailor (1933).
- His son Don Evan, a Captain in the U.S. Army Air Corps, died in World War II in a plane crash.
- When his oldest son was born, Brown got sick and passed out in the delivery room.
- He and his wife renewed their wedding vows on December 24, 1940. His oldest son Don gave away the bride, second son Joe was best man, and the daughters were flower girls. Daughter-in-law Virginia Newport Brown was the maid of honor.
- He was one of only two civilians awarded the Bronze Star during World War II. At his own expense, he would travel frequently to Europe and the Pacific to entertain the troops, performing in all weather conditions and frequently in hospitals. He was even known to have done his entire routine for dying soldiers, or just one injured man, so he wouldn't be left out. On each trip back to the United States, he would bring sacks of mail from the servicemen to deliver to their families.
- Had four children: two sons, Don Evan (born December 25, 1916) and Joe L. Brown, and two daughters, Mary Katherine Ann (born 1930) and Kathryn Francis (born 1934). Both daughters were adopted as infants.
- Playing the flute in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935) Brown ad-libbed, "I won't play any more" when thrown into a lake. It always got a good laugh, but it is said to be the only non-Shakespeare bit of dialogue in the film.
- The cartoon characters Lippy the Lion and Peter Potamus was modeled after Brown.
- OH-18 in Holgate, Ohio, his birthplace, is renamed Joe E. Brown Avenue. Toledo, Ohio has a city park named Joe E. Brown Park, 150 W Oakland Street.
- Joe E. Brown's son Joe L. Brown became a baseball executive and is best known for being the General Manager of the Pittsburgh Pirates during the period when they won the World Series in 1960.
- In 1948, he won a special Tony Award for the touring production of "Harvey", cited for "spreading theater to the country while the original performs in New York".
- In December 1939, his daughter Kathryn suffered a skull fracture when she was thrown from a horse. Three days later, Brown was in a car accident in where his car rolled over several times and fell down a 35 foot embankment. He ended up breaking his back and collapsing a lung. His heart stopped during surgery and he was clinically dead for 40 seconds.
- Brown was a member of The Lambs, an actors club established in New York City in 1874. He joined The Lambs in 1924 and was later made a Life Member.
- His sons were both athletes at the University of California, Los Angeles.
- An animated version of him appears in the Oswald the Lucky Rabbit cartoon The Merry Old Soul. along with Laurel and Hardy , Charlie Chaplin and others.
- In the 1960s, he was the official spokesman for the Paper Mate Pen Corporation.
- Bowling Green State University dedicated one of its three theaters to him (the one in which he appeared in "Harvey" in the 1950s) as The Joe E. Brown Theatre.
- He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1680 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.
- In March 2020, he was honored as Turner Classic Movies Star of the Month.
- Following his death, he was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. Specific interment location: Sunrise Slope, just south of the Great Mausoleum.
- Joe and Buster Keaton each captained baseball teams on the Hollywood lots, playing many games for charity.
- Joe Evans Brown passed away on July 6, 1973, only three weeks away from what would have been his 81st birthday on July 28.
- Biography in: "Who's Who in Comedy", by Ronald L. Smith, pg. 68-69. New York: Facts on File, 1992. ISBN 0816023387
- November 19, 1930 with actor Joe E. Brown as the MC. The opening attraction was "The Life of the Party," a Vitaphone release in 2 strip Technicolor. The Warner Theater in Huntington Park, California is on the east side of the street between Zoe Ave and Saturn Ave.
- At the time of his death, he and Kathryn were living at 400 N. Bristol Avenue in the western Los Angeles suburb of Brentwood. It was a modest single-story on the northeast corner of Bristol and Ashford. It's long-gone and overbuilt now. Brown's immediate neighbor was Don Fedderson, and beyond Fedderson was Donald O'Connor's home. Across the street from the Browns, at 409 N. Bristol, was a home built by one of the Doheny families, which was purchased by Tony Orlando in 1975.
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