Robert Mitchum

Robert Mitchum

Robert Osborne one of the nation’s best interviewers said of Mitchum when he interviewed him back in 2011 that he was a scoundrel. Before the mikes were turned on he was loquacious and charming but when the cameras began to roll Bob wouldn’t give a straight answer to any of Osborne’s simple queries. That was his style throughout his career and whenever he was interviewed he would become rhetorical rather than answer his interviewer and filled the content with hilarity and often vulgarity.  Our star for May never got caught up in his celebrity though in fact he reflected on it so casually and would say: “It sure beats working”. 

Born August 6, 1917 in Bridgeport Connecticut Mitchum would make over a 100 movies and what Hollywood studios and directors loved about him was that he would play anything from homicidal villains, heroic GI’s, flinty Private Eyes or the black hat in Hopalong Cassidy movies. Born to a railroad worker James Mitchum of Irish descent and daughter to a Norwegian ship captain Anne Harriet. Robert lost his father at age 2 to a railroad switching accident and his mother Anne became a linotype operator to support her 3 children. 

Leaving school at 14 Robert hopped freight trains around the country and made money as a laborer, a coal miner, aircraft assembler, even a boxer. He had many run-ins with the law, which gave him a lifelong repugnance to authority. Later in life he would face almost two months in jail on trumped up marijuana charges, which were later expunged. However marijuana had little to do with the deteriorating quality of life Robert Mitchum would later suffer from, as it was the chain smoking and alcoholic drinking that would distort his physiology and good looks even though he lived until he was 79.

Arriving in Long Beach California in 1936 with his sister he joined a local theater guild began as a ghost writer for an astrologer, worked as a stagehand then started acting as a bit player in some of the theater productions. He started writing poetry, songs and monologues for his sister Annette who was performing in nightclubs at the time.  Mitchum’s hiatus ensued as he returned to Maryland to marry his betrothed Dorothy Spence an enduring marriage until his death he sired 3 children with Dorothy and for a time worked as a machine operator with Lockheed. 

Mitchum would suffer a nervous breakdown precipitating a temporary blindness most likely from stress but after his recovery he would return to Hollywood as a villain opposite William Boyd Hopalong Cassidy in 1942-43. He then performed in a film opposite Randolph Scott in 1943 titled Gung Ho about war in the Pacific. Later he impressed Mervyn LeRoy in Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo and signed a seven-year contract with RKO. He followed with a moderately successful western Nevada but then was sent to United Artists for the critically acclaimed G.I. Joe in 1945 which was nominated for four Oscars including best supporting actor for Mitchum. He was then drafted and stayed in the army for less than a year and upon his return in 1947 he began to hit his stride with one hit after another starting with the iconic Film Noir Out of the Past costarring the now centenarian Kirk Douglas. It was early in 1948 when he was arrested on the much publicized marijuana charges along with actress Lila Leeds. The press had a field day taking pictures of him mopping floors in prison and the arrest only served to make Mitchum more popular than ever as his films afterward were box office hits. As was mentioned earlier the charge was a setup by the District Attorney’s office trying to entrap Hollywood actors. 

 Mitchum could play the white hat but would always return to Film Noir as some of his best film work rested there but it was his demonic portrayal of a preacher in 1955’s Night of the Hunter, which won him his biggest critical acclaim. Interestingly enough it was the only film that Charles Laughton directed. That same year Mitchum was thrown off the movie Blood Alley as it was reported he threw the transportation director into San Francisco Bay but it was most likely his erratic behavior that ended his role on that film. 

One of this writers favorite however I enjoyed as a youth was with Deborah Kerr in 1957’s Heaven Knows Mister Allison wherein he as a Marine corporal is shipwrecked on a Pacific island with a nun, Kerr. it was a riveting drama as the two battle the elements and an invading Japanese Army. The film nominated for two Academy Awards including best actress for Kerr and Mitchum was nominated for a BAFTA for his portrayal.   

Showing his versatility in 1960 Robert was reunited with Kerr in The Sundowners this time as husband and wife struggling in a depression era Australia. Kerr nominated again for best actress and the film for five Oscars. Mitchum won the National Board of Review for best Actor. In 1962 he returned to the predator role in Cape Fear opposite the iconic Gregory Peck. Rounding out his career he appeared in The Longest Day 1962, El Dorado 1967 and Anzio 1968.

Maybe you didn’t know that Robert Mitchum was both a composer and singer.  His voice can be heard in Rachel and the Stranger, River of No Return and The Night of the Hunter. He released an album on Capitol Records and his The Ballad of Thunder Road reached 62 on the Billboard Pop Singles chart. In 1991 Mitchum appeared on Saturday Night Live playing a parody of private eye Philip Marlowe in a short comedy sketch. That same year he was given a lifetime achievement award from the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures and the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992. Mitchum died weeks short of his 80th birthday complications of lung cancer and emphysema he was survived by his wife of 57 years Dorothy.  Robert Mitchum The Soul of Film Noir as Roger Ebert referred to him as.