Early life
Marcus Brody was born into a wealthy British family and grew up in London. In college, he studied at Oxford University, where he became fast friends with fellow student Henry Walton Jones, Senior as well as traveling to the United States to attend Princeton,[3] where he earned a bantam-weight boxing title around 1906.[1] Written correspondence from Brody the year prior would assist Henry Jones's 1906 travels through Europe to discover the Holy Grail. Brody directed Jones, by then a professor, to an abbey in Brittany, France containing a text which treated the Grail as a genuine historical artifact.[4]
After graduation, Brody lectured at various universities and participated in minor archaeological digs. Brody was able to witness Henry's son Indiana grow up, and in 1913, he let the younger Jones accompany him on an expedition to Egypt, where they recovered the Ring of Osiris. By that time, Brody had become assistant curator of the National Museum. When Brody's wife died of pneumonia, he dedicated himself to the museum.[1]
In the United Kingdom in July 1920, Brody helped Henry, who was in the country researching the Arthurian collections of the British Museum and the Bodleian Library. He introduced the professor to several scholars supportive of Jones's work, including a Jesuit named Brother Matthius. The next day the two men left for Wales to make further investigations. A little under two weeks later, in the village of Mochdref, Jones got drunk while enticing Celtic legends about the Grail out of the locals at the Purple Dragon and arrested. On his way to the jail, Brody got lost and it took him most of the next morning to find his way there to pay Jones's fine.[4]
In 1922, Brody — representing the National Museum — contacted Indiana Jones who was now a student, to inform him he was interested in his services, and asked Indy to give him a call the next time he was in the States.[5] After Jones acquired his Ph.D in 1925, Brody helped him secure a teaching job at London University.[6]
Years of adventureEdit
In 1929, Indiana assisted Brody in a search for his missing brother-in-law, Hans Beitelheimer.[7]
Brody, after an encounter with Belloq, in 1930.
Added by JawajamesIn 1930 Brody sent a letter to Henry Jones about the discovery of the chronicles of Saint Anselm[4] and in the winter of that year, Brody and Indiana Jones were invited by the Swedish government to help excavate the Temple of Old Uppsala. Because of a heavy snow, Brody stayed at the hotel in Uppsala while Jones explored the ruins with Theresa Lawrence. After Lawrence had left with the main treasure, a ring, Brody reluctantly agreed to Jones' request to recover the ring from the British Museum. In London, Brody was robbed by René Belloq, who took the real treasure, a scroll that Jones had found. Jones and Lawrence managed to prevent Belloq from selling the scroll in Marrakesh to the Nazis, and then Brody and Jones returned to America from London, after Jones stole the ring back.[8]
In the late spring or early summer of 1931, Brody, upset about the theft of one of the Wohat Statues from the New York Museum of History, had brought the museum's security chief, Ballantine Gruber, to Marshall College to meet with Indiana Jones, who was better suited to tracking down the stolen crocodile statue. Jones realized that the statues were a clue to the Invincible Ruby of Ali Bey, and after Brody received a telegram about the theft of another statue in Barcelona, sent Jones after the stolen statues and the ruby.[9]
Also by that year, Brody's work had led him to a position as Director of Special Acquisitions at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City.
In 1933, Brody visited Indiana Jones in Princeton to tell him that the Voynich Manuscript had been stolen.
