Philadelphia’s Garrett Brown, Steadicam inventor, to join Inventors Hall of Fame

With his invention of the Steadicam, Garrett Brown made it possible for Rocky Balboa to sprint up the Art Museum steps.

Brown, who holds 50 patents and whom the Philadelphia Inquirer once called “perhaps Philadelphia’s most prolific inventor since a certain chap named Franklin,” will be inducted into the Inventors Hall of Fame this month, NPR reported. The Steadicam is a body-mounted camera that allows for steady handheld shots.

A former car salesman and Haverford High School grad, Brown founded his own film company in 1968. After he dropped out of Tufts University, he read “every film book at the Free Library,” he told the Inquirer in 1993.

Read the Inquirer profile here.

Read or listen to the NPR story here.