Though he played just nine seasons, all of them with the Cleveland Browns, Jim Brown was one of the NFL’s greatest running backs. Voted the league’s Most Valuable Player four times, Brown never missed a game from his rookie year in 1957 until the end of the season in 1965.

And while his stats were impressive (126 career touchdowns; 1,863 yards rushed in 1963), they certainly would have been more so had he not retired after nine years of wear and tear on his body. Brown hung up his shoulder pads at the age of 30 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1971.

Brown enjoyed a rich post-football career, especially as an actor. In 1967, he starred alongside Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine in “The Dirty Dozen.” “Ice Station Zebra” followed... the next year, and in the 1970s, Brown worked with fellow former football player Fred Williamson on classic Blacksploitation flicks like “Three the Hard Way” and “Take a Hard Ride.” In 2002, Brown was the subject of a Spike Lee documentary called “Jim Brown: All-American.”