Brown was returning from a European trip when she booked passage on the brand-new Titanic in April 1912. When that vessel hit an iceberg, she drew on her experiences in the wild, wild West to rally the passengers on her lifeboat before they were rescued by the Carpathia. When that boat arrived in New York, reporters asked how she had survived. "Typical Brown luck," she replied. "We're unsinkable."
That's when she became the Unsinkable Mrs. Brown. The Molly followed later.
And the Molly version of Brown is what lives on in the Meredith Willson musical that washed up on Broadway in 1960, became a movie starring Reynolds, and is now in previews at the Stage Theatre in the Denver Performing Arts Complex. Colorado native Beth Malone is playing the spunky, homegrown heroine.
For more on Margaret Brown, go to the Molly Brown House website; a show on her work during World War I continues there through September 28. For showtimes and tickets for The Unsinkable Molly Brown, go to denvercenter.org.