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Much Like the Character He Played

ROBERT MITCHUM - Birth Name Robert Charles Durman Mitchum

Height 6’ 1”

Birth: August 6^th, 1917 Bridgeport, Connecticut

Death: July 1^st, 1997 Santa Barbara, California. (lung cancer)

Feburary 28^th 1998

To Robert Mitchum,

1997 was a busy year for deaths amongst actors. You, along with Lloyd Bridges, Richard Jackel, Red Skelton, Brian Keith, George Mather, Dennis James, Edward Mulhare, the famous acting coach Sandy Meisner - Pat Paulsen won’t be running for President anymore, Burgess Meredith, my long time friend Fred Holliday, James Stewart, other famous faces with unfamiliar names and others perhaps no one would recognize. A Screen Actors Guild magazine listed those who died – I counted 182 famous and not-so-famous – so many people who put their heart and soul into an acting career – dead and gone, most who will never live on as you and others who reached fame and fortune. What is the magic that touches one and not the other is a question I have always wondered. I know I must be getting old when I sit and read the obituaries. As I counted, I wondered which letter in the alphabet had the most deaths – it was between 8 and 12 with “A” and “V” with 5 each – interesting since an A is the same shape as the V reversed.

While watching “El Dorado” this evening, I realized so many in that movie are now sharing tales of Hollywood days in the “The Sweet By and By.” You, Howard Hawks, John Wayne, Charlene Holt, Chris George – and how many others? What has happened to so many in that picture I have known? Through the years, at one time or another, I had become acquainted with most of the principle actors on the film – at least 10 or so. Today, I keep wondering how many more of them have died.

When “El Dorado” was shot in Old Town near Tucson in the mid-60s, my friend Diane, who dated Howard Hawks, was working on the film. Diane invited me to visit her there. We hoped that if I just happen to be hanging around the set, Howard would find a small part for me in the picture.

During that same time I was visiting with another friend in Palm Desert when I told her about Diane’s invitation, she insisted we go, just as she had when we went to Europe in the 1960s and I ended up working six months in “Cleopatra.” We decided to drive down to Tucson and visit Diane. Joyce was so enamored to be around the movie people, she could be downright embarrassing at times – most of the time! We both hailed from Texas but met in California. In dry spells in acting work – and there were many – sometimes I took temporary office jobs. She was my boss on one of those jobs. The Texas bond spawned our friendship. I was going through my second marriage break-up and was very despondent with another failure at my young age. While my tendency was to sit at home and brood, she was a person who would force me to go out and have a good time. A vivacious, flirty Libra, Joyce was not a raving beauty but attractive. When we first met, she generally dressed a bit “whore-y.” With my fashion background, she was open to the suggestions I frequently made as to how she should dress, colors to wear and what not to wear. Other friends didn’t like my running around with her and always warning me about her. It was understandable. I used to refer to her as “the one, who got us IN trouble, while I was the one to get us out.” At times it worked very well. When we traveled in Europe her flirt-with-any-man could get us on first class train rides, then when it came time for her to “pay off” – I would step in and somewhat cover for her or get us out of the awkward situation. At times it could be very irritating and sometimes fearful. If it had not been for her urging me to go to Europe the first time, I would never have gone nor would I have spent six months in Rome working on the film “Cleopatra” and also traveled to Egypt.

Because of her pushing me to get out and go at those times when I needed a shove, I always felt a bit “beholding” to her and a sense of loyalty that she was there for me when I needed a friend to urge me to socialize. In youth, I was so very trusting (some things never change)! When I had any suspicions about her going behind my back to date one of my boyfriends, I would end up the culprit, feeling guilty for suspecting her. At the time, I was aware of psychics but not of my own intuitive powers that were more proficient than most others. It was several years later before I realized this. Even so, it is just plain hard for some of us to accept this seventh sense. I was “sensing” the truth but it took me years to realize it.

Joyce never finished high school or college. She was self-taught and could work circles around most secretaries – an ability that was impossible for me to learn. Trying to convince her that she could get a job when I could not went unheeded. She began working as a cocktail waitress before she was of age. She began her sex life far earlier than anyone I knew. At only sixteen she had surgery and lost all chances of ever have children, which seemed to give her carte blanche to freely have sex any time she chose. I was still in my virtuous stage of sex, love and marriage as one unit. She married her boss and when divorced, headed West for California as so many women do. I met her only months after she arrived. Through the years, our friendship would break up over some dirty trick that she did but I was always very forgiving.

This was one of those times when I was feeling down and needed a change. That was why I was visiting her in Palm Desert. My job training to be a potential producer had slipped away. My romance with Rick Jason has gone astray. It seemed everyone I knew was gay or bisexual. I began to wonder if something was wrong with me because I was heterosexual. With that question plaguing me, I was feeling it was time to get the hell out of L.A.! Joyce and I discussed opening a women’s wear store together and were to discuss it on the trip. She was married (again) to a very frugal but wealthy man.

The first day we drove to Tucson we went directly to the set at Old Tucson. After the shooting ceased and all went back to the motel, we gather in the bar occupying a very large booth. Joyce had a knack for attracting married men – when you began paying attention to her that was all she needed to go “over board!” She was in “Seventh Heaven.” Since neither she nor you were my concern, I really don’t recall much about it. My memory is of my own experience while there. Knowing Joyce, she managed to get together with you. “God – another married man” I thought!

On that or the next evening we were having our gathering in a booth when James Caan slipped into the booth next to me. At the time he was virtually unknown. He had been working in New York and unheard of on the West Coast. I am not sure how Howard cast him in the picture but it was his first real break into films. I didn’t think he was particularly good looking but sort of cute. There was another actor, John Gabriel, working on the picture that I had known for several years that I thought was more interesting, however, unfortunately, his interest in me was not the same as mine for him. Jimmy began rubbing his leg against mine. Hum, I wondered what was going on.

One night we piled into several cars and headed for Nogales to imbibe in $1. or 50 cent margaritas! Several of the stunt men were in the group and quite funny. It seems when locals find out the stunt guys are working in a movie, it becomes a challenge to attempt to pick a fight. These guys were willing and able, fortunately no real fracas broke out. It was just an interesting observation of human nature. It doesn’t matter that the stunt men are working husbands; fathers just like those picking the fights and aren’t necessarily interested in “performing” without pay since that is what the do all day and to earn their livelihood.

Quite soon, Jimmy and I became involved and spending time together. He seemed very sweet, fun and interesting. A vivid memory of you and your very out spoken say-what-you-think manner is still with me. I was a bit intimidated when around you for fear you might jump on something I said and embarrass me. I think you probably sensed that the night you and your wife gave a party for the cast and crew in the large lovely adobe style home you rented while in Tucson. You invited everyone over for an outdoor barbecue and party. It was a warm evening with the stars brightly shinning and a fun evening. I went with Jimmy. By then, we had spent several nights together. While we were enjoying a slow, romantic dance, I died inside when you yelled out “Hey, Jimmy you guys stop that floor fucking!” I felt like falling through the floor in embarrassment. It was funny for everyone but not me! Now that I have matured a great deal since then, I realize that the embarrassment was created inside me not you, Robert Mitchum. It was a funny statement and it shouldn’t have bothered me. The custom of humor around film people was simply being expressed. It took me many years to understand why on movie sets all four letter words are used, jokes are constantly being told, very casual clothing is worn – all to relax the cast and crew – to put everyone at ease. Only a couple of movies I worked on were the exception to the loose, casual attitudes and that was when Vincent Minnelli was directing – what a perfectionist he was!

Joyce proved again that considering going into any kind of business with her was a mistake. As I approached the day to leave on my second trip to Tucson, this time I decided to head home to Texas. Before heading East, I asked for autographed photos that I sometimes collected for my daughter. Everyone I asked willingly gave me an autographed photograph, including John Wayne. When I asked you, Chris George was standing nearby talking to you. He blurted out “Robert Mitchum is a STAR, you DON’T ask HIM for AN autograph!!” Again, I was so embarrassed at Chris’ rudeness! You never said a thing nor did you give me a photograph. Today, John Wayne’s autographed photo, along with many others, hangs on my wall.

When I did return to Los Angeles after attempting to live in Texas, Jimmy and I would see each other from time to time. Once was when he was laid up in a small hospital with a baseball injury. We both worked in Howard Hawk’s film “Redline 7000.” I honestly don’t remember Jimmy’s reaction toward me when we worked together in that picture. By that time, I think he was dating one of the actresses from “El Dorado.” I never ran into him as he grew more and more famous for many years. He certainly did make a successful acting career. He was a cute young cocky guy in both of those parts but his roles as Mafia or bad guy parts catapulted him to success. Then there was all the publicity about his drug use. His personal life seem to take a bad boy imagine. I heard that producers would not hire him for a while because he seemed to fall into the trap of so many in Hollywood of using substances for his security.

Once actors are forced to delve deeply into their own psyche, without a strong foundation or some sort of spiritual connection, they seek inner security in all the wrong places. Many of us raised in an earlier era seemed to have more of a foundation to build upon and not fall into that terrible drug obsession. When I did see Jimmy, one night at a private party in a restaurant on La Cienega, surrounded by young women, he didn’t recognize me as we met on the stairway. I read an article that James Caan’s oldest child was nineteen that didn’t make sense because “El Dorado” was shot in the mid 60ies, over thirty years ago and he had two children back east when I dated him. He had more from later marriages.

Several years ago I was invited to tape my TV show at a Celebrity function in Ixtapa, Mexico. Jimmy was one of the honorees at this affair. We spoke only briefly. He had no problem remembering me at that time. I recall hoping for his sake that his bout with drugs had ended. It’s amusing how we change our taste in our attraction to the opposite sex - in youth, Jimmy was cute and appealing but today, I wouldn’t look twice at him. I guess I’ve grown up.

In the mid 1950s my ex-husband, stage name of Mark Houston, worked at 20^th in one of your films “The Enemy Below.”

You deserve credit for a lasting marriage that are so rare in Hollywood.

BOB MITCHUM’S WIFE AND CHILDREN:

Dorothy Mitchum (15 March 15^th 1940 - 1 July 1^st, 1997) (his death)

3 children - actors James Mitchum and Christopher Mitchum.

GENERAL INFORMATION:

As a youth Mitchum wandered around the country, sometimes traveled like a hobo or taking odd jobs. His youthful disdain for authority created discipline problems. His teen years were spent good deal of the time out on the open road. When he was only 14, in Georgia, he was charged with vagrancy and was sentenced to a chain gang, from which he managed to escape. His mother and stepfather who was a British army major raised him and his siblings. They lived in Connecticut, New York, and Delaware. By 1940, at age 23, the roaming Mitchum settled down to marry his high-school sweetheart that he remained with all of his life. He took a job at Lockheed Aircraft in southern California. He discovered acting in a Long Beach, California amateur theatre company. He joined the local theater group and by 1943 gradually got into film jobs. He worked a variety of jobs. One was a ghostwriter for astrologist Carroll Righter. Small roles in films began to come his way. He appeared in dozens of films within a brief time. Cast in The Story of G.I. Joe in 1945, he received an Oscar nomination as Best Supporting Actor. After that his career advanced rapidly. In 1948 he was arrest for marijuana possession. He and others thought his career was over but amazingly the public took it in stride. His brief prison term for marijuana usage in 1949 seemed to only enhance his “bad boy” appeal. His apparently lazy style and seen-it-all demeanor proved highly attractive to men and women, and by the 1950s he was a true superstar. Mitchum co-wrote and composed an oratorio produced at the Hollywood Bowl by Orson Welles. A master of accents and seemingly unconcerned about his star image, he played in both forgettable and unforgettable films with unswerving nonchalance, leading many to overlook the prodigious talent he can bring to a project which he finds compelling. He moved into television in the Eighties as his film opportunities diminished, winning new fans with “The Winds of War” and “War and Remembrance”. Mitchum’s general physique, tall, broad chest, sleepy eyes, devil may care attitude and moving with leisurely, catlike grace and delivering his dialogue in deep voice with careful deliberation was a mode of acting that endeared him to audiences. There was always more to Mitchum than the obvious and that quality kept him in stardom’s top rank for many years. Whether he was in westerns, war movies, a detective or lover, he fit the character perfectly. In a TV version of William Randolph Hearst love affair with Marion Davies, Mitchum played Hearst. Another TV role that brought him much acclaim was the mini-series “Winds of War and its sequel “War and Remembrances in 1988 and 1999.

TRIVIA:

Brother of actor John Mitchum Grandfather of actor Bentley Mitchum. Grandfather of actress Carrie Mitchum. Treated at the Betty Ford Center in the early 1990s for alcoholism. Played the saxophone and wrote poetry.

In 1947, Robert Mitchum and Gary Gray recorded the songs from “Rachel and the Stranger” for Delta records’ soundtrack album. In 1998, these and other songs were released on a CD as “Robert Mitchum Sings.”

PERSONAL QUOTES:

“The only difference between me and my fellow actors is that I’ve spent more time in jail.” - “I gave up being serious about making pictures around the time I made a film with Greer Garson and she took 125 takes to say no.” - “I started out to be a sex fiend but couldn’t pass the physical.” - “Movies bore me; especially my own.” - “I’ve still got the same attitude I had when I started. I haven’t changed anything but my underwear.” - “Listen. I got three expressions: looking left, looking right and looking straight ahead.” “People think I have an interesting walk. Hell, I’m just trying to hold my gut in.” (on press stories) “They’re all true - booze, brawls, broads, all true. Make up some more if you want to.” - “When I drop dead and they rush to the drawer, there’s going to be nothing in it but a note saying ‘later’.” Edward Dmytryk: “On the surface he is irresponsible and vague and yes - wacky. Underneath he knows the score as few men in Hollywood do.” Charles Laughton: “All the tough talk is a blind. He is a literate, gracious, kind man with wonderful manners and he speaks beautifully - when he wants to. He would make the best Macbeth of any actor living.” John Huston: “He is a rarity among actors, hard-working, non-complaining, amazingly perceptive, one of the most shockingly underrated stars in business.” Fred Zinneman: “He is one of the finest instinctive actors in the business, almost in the same class as Spencer Tracy.” David Lean: “Mitchum can, simply by being there, make almost any other actor look like a hole in the screen.” Vincent Price: “He writes his poetry and his songs and tells his stories - some true, some not. It doesn’t matter, because they’re all funny. But he is a complete anachronism. He claims he doesn’t care about acting, but he’s an extraordinary actor. He’s one of that group in Hollywood who are such extraordinary personalities that people forget they’re marvelous actors.

ROBERT MITCHUM’S FILMS & TV:

Pulp Cinema (2001), AFI’s 100 Years, 100 Thrills: America’s Most Heart-Pounding Movies (2001), Chop Suey (2000), Off the Menu: The Last Days of Chasen’s (1998), The 70^th Annual Academy Awards (1998), James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997), Wild Bill: Hollywood Maverick (1996), Waiting for Sunset (1995), Jim Jarmusch’s Dead Man (1996), Backfire! (1995), 100 Years of the Hollywood Western (1994), La Classe Américaine (1993), The Mystery of Rhyne Caluder (1993), Woman of Desire (1993), Tombstone (1993), The Seven Deadly Sins (1992), African Skies (1991), Cape Fear (1991), Midnight Ride (1990), Waiting for the Wind (1990), A Family for Joe (1990), Believed Violent (1990), The Years of War (1989), Jake Spanner, Private Eye (1989), Brotherhood of the Rose (1989), John Huston: The Man, the Movies, the Maverick (1988), Scrooged (1988) War and Remembrance (1988) Mr. North (1988), Hollywood The Golden Years: The RKO Story (1987), Marilyn Monroe: Beyond the Legend (1987), Remembering Marilyn (1987), Thompson’s Last Run (1986), North and South (1985), Promises to Keep (1985), Reunion at Fairborough (1985), Hearst and Davies Affair, The (1985), The American Film Institute Salute to Lillian Gish (1984), Maria’s Lovers (1984), The Ambassador(1984), The American Film Institute Salute to John Huston (1983), A Killer in the Family (1983), The Winds of War (1983), That Championship Season (1982), One Shoe Makes It Murder (1982), Nightkill (1980), Agency (1980), Matilda (1978), Breakthrough (1978), The Big Sleep (1978), The Amsterdam Kill (1977), Midway (1976), The Last Tycoon (1976), Farewell, My Lovely (1975), The Yakuza (1975), America on the Rocks (1973), The Friends of Eddie Coyle(1973), The Wrath of God (1972), Going Home (1971), Ryan’s Daughter (1970), Young Billy Young (1969, The Good Guys and the Bad Guys (1969), A Movable Scene (1968), Secret Ceremony (1968), 5 Card Stud (1968), Anzio (1968), Villa Rides (1968), El Dorado (1967), Way West, The (1967), Mister Moses (1965), What a Way to Go! (1964), Man in the Middle (1964), Rampage (1963), List of Adrian The Messenger (1963), Two for the Seesaw (1962), The Longest Day (1962), Cape Fear (1962), The Last Time I Saw Archie (1961), The Sundowners (1960), The Grass Is Greener (1960), A Terrible Beauty (1960), Home from the Hill (1960), The Wonderful Country (1959), The Angry Hills(1959), The Hunters (1958), Thunder Road (1958), The Enemy Below (1957), Fire Down Below (1957), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Bandido (1956), Foreign Intrigue (1956), Man with the Gun (1955), Not as a Stranger (1955), The Night of the Hunter (1955), She Couldn’t Say No (1954), Track of the Cat (1954), River of No Return (1954), Second Chance (1953), White Witch Doctor (1953), One Minute to Zero (1952), Angel Face (1952), The Lusty Men (1952), Macao (1952), My Forbidden Past (1951), The Racket (1951), His Kind of Woman (1951), Hollywood Goes to Bat (1950), Where Danger Lives (1950), The Big Steal (1949), Holiday Affair (1949), The Red Pony (1949), Blood on the Moon (1948), Rachel and the Stranger (1948), Out of the Past (1947), Desire Me (1947), Crossfire (1947), Pursued (1947), The Locket (1946), Undercurrent (1946), Till the End of Time (1946), West of the Pecos (1945), Ernie Pyle’s Story of G.I. Joe (1945), Nevada (1944), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944), Girl Rush (1944), When Strangers Marry (1944), Mr. Winkle Goes to War (1944), Johnny Doesn’t Live Here Any More (1944), The Human Comedy (1943), Gung Ho! (1943), Riders of the Deadline (1943), The Dancing Masters (1943), Minesweeper (1943), Cry ‘Havoc’ (1943), False Colors (1943), Doughboys in Ireland (1943), Bar 20 (1943), Corvette K-225 (1943), Beyond the Last Frontier (1943), Lone Star Trail (1943), We’ve Never Been Licked (1943), Colt Comrades (1943), The Leather Burners (1943), Follow the Band (1943), Border Patrol (1943), Aerial Gunner (1943), Hoppy Serves a Writ (1943), The Magic of Make-up(1942).

PRODUCER:

A Terrible Beauty (1960), The Wonderful Country (1959), Thunder Road (1958)

WRITER:

Thunder Road (1958) (story)

COMPOSER:

Thunder Road (1958) (song “Whippoorwill”)

Night of the Hunter, The (1955) (director: children)

TV GUEST APPEARANCES:

Private Screenings (1996), The Marshal (1995), The Equalizer (1985) several, Parkinson (1971), The Celebrity Game (1964), The Dick Powell Show (1961), Climax! (1954).