Oscar Profile #174: Robert Mitchum

Born August 6, 1917 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, Robert Mitchum was hands down the most taken for granted actor in Hollywood history. Despite a long and illustrious career he was nominated only once for an Oscar at the start of his career for a 1945 film; received his only BAFTA nomination for a 1957 film; his only major critics’ award for two 1960 films; no Emmy nominations despite many memorable TV roles and no Golden Globes until he was awarded the Cecil B. DeMille award for career achievement at the 1991 ceremonies.

Mitchum’s father, a railroad worker was crushed to death on the job when he was less than two years old. His mother later a married a British Army major who helped raise him and his siblings in Connecticut, New York and Delaware. On his own at 14, he was charged with vagrancy and sentenced to a Georgia chain gang from which he escaped. Making his way to California he discovered acting while working at Lockheed Aircraft in Long Beach. He married his wife Dorothy in 1940 and made his film debut in an uncredited role in Alfred Hitchcock’s Saboteur in 1942. Another uncredited role in 1943’s The Human Comedy made audiences sit up and take notice. He received his first credited role in 1943’s Hopalong Cassidy western, Hoppy Serves a Writ. Memorable roles in 1943’s Cry Havoc and 1944’s Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo led to his casting as the platoon sergeant in 1945’s The Story of G.I. Joe for which he received his only Oscar nomination.

Unforgettable in such hits as 1946’s Till the End of Time; 1947’s Crossfire and Out of the Past; 1948’s Rachel and the Stranger and Blood on the Moon and 1949’s The Red Pony, he was a major star going into the 1950s. That decade saw him excel in such films as 1951’s His Kind of Woman and The Racket; 1952’s Macao and The Lusty Men; 1953’s Angel Face; 1954’s River of No Return and Track of the Cat; 1955’s Not as a Stranger and The Night of the Hunter and 1957’s The Enemy Below and Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison, the latter earning him a BAFTA nod as Best Actor.

Two 1960 films, Home From the Hill and The Sundowners brought him a National Board of Review award as Best Actor and a trio of 1962 films, Cape Fear; The Longest Day and Two for the Seesaw solidified his box office strength. He remained a top box office star for the rest of the decade in such films as El Dorado; Anzio; 5 Card Stud and Secret Ceremony and had his most unusual role playing against type as a cuckold in 1970’s Ryan’s Daughter.

Marvelous roles in 1971’s Going Home; 1972’s The Wrath of God; 1973’s The Friends of Eddie Coyle and 1975’s Farewell, My Lovely followed. 1982’s That Championship Season was his last major film on the big screen.
No longer a major box office star, he found a home on TV, first as the star of the 1983 mini-series, The Winds of War; then in a series of made-for-TV films including 1983’s A Killer in the Family and 1985’s Reunion at Fairborough. The 1988-89 mini-series, War and Remembrance, a sequel to The Winds of War, was even more successful than its predecessor. In 1990, when he was 73 years old, he starred in his own TV series, A Family for Joe. He played his last role as George Stevens in 1997’s James Dean: Race With Destiny.

Robert Mitchum died of lung cancer on July 1, 1997, one month before his 80th birthday, one day before fellow Hollywood legend, James Stewart who played in support of Mitchum in the 1978 remake of The Big Sleep. Mitchum’s sons James and Christopher; daughter Trini; grandsons Bentley and Price and granddaughter Carrie carry on his acting tradition.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

OUT OF THE PAST (1947), directed by Jacques Tourneur

Everyone’s favorite film noir, Mitchum’s world-weary private eye turned small town gas station owner and Jane Greer’s duplicitous femme fatale ignite the screen, but there are also memorable supporting turns from Kirk Douglas, Rhonda Fleming, Richard Webb, Steve Brodie, Virginia Huston and Dickie Moore among others.

Mitchum might have been a little young at 30 to be playing world-weary but nobody could have done it better, not even Humphrey Bogart, John Garfield and Dick Powell, all of whom turned down the role before it was offered to him.

THE NIGHT OF THE HUNTER (1955), directed by Charles Laughton

Laughton’s only film as a director gave Mitchum one of his best roles as the religious fanatic who marries and then kills hapless Shelley Winters, hunting down her now orphaned children looking for money stolen by their father. Lillian Gish as the wise matron who takes in the children and holds Mitchum off with a shotgun is equally effective in this masterpiece unappreciated in its own time.

Sadly the film was such a flop that Laughton never got another chance to direct. It was rediscovered after his death in 1962 and has been a cult favorite ever since.

HOME FROM THE HILL (1960), directed by Vincente Minnelli

This adaptation of William Humphrey’s best-seller was a hugely successful film which gave Mitchum another of his great roles, as a wealthy and powerful Texan, a notorious womanizer who cheats on his beauteous wife, Eleanor Parker and loses the love and respect of his son George Hamilton when he discovers that Mitchum’s ranch hand and Hamilton’s best friend, George Peppard, is Mitchum’s cast-off illegitimate son. There’s plenty of action to go along with the melodrama and one of the great closing scenes in film history as Peppard and Parker meet at Mitchum’s grave.

RYAN’S DAUGHTER (1970), directed by David Lean

Mitchum was the last actor in the world at the time that one would expect to see play a cuckold, but his low-key portrayal of an Irish schoolteacher whose wife Sarah Miles has an affair with a British Army Officer played by Christopher Jones is one of his best. Lushly filmed by master director Lean, and boasting fine support from Trevor Howard as the village priest and John Mills in an Oscar winning portrayal of the village idiot, the film was criticized for taking too long to tell what was essentially a simple story.

Lean’s disappointment at the critical reception, particularly a nasty review from Pauline Kael, sent him into a deep depression which took fourteen years to come out of. His next film, 1984’s A Passage to India was his last.

REUNION AT FAIRBOROUGH (1985), directed by Herbert Wise

This made-for-TV film about a reunion of World War II Army vets at their old base in England was Mitchum’s fourth and final film opposite Deborah Kerr. Their first two films together, 1957’s Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison and 1960’s The Sundowners earned Kerr two of her three New York Film Critics awards and two of her six Oscar nominations, but Mitchum’s only recognition came from BAFTA which gave him a Best Actor nomination for Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison.

Mitchum and Kerr work beautifully together as always. Even in the dismal The Grass Is Greener which also wastes the talents of Cary Grant and Jean Simmons, they were a pleasure to watch together. Here they have exemplary material, she as an old flame he didn’t know he left pregnant when the war ended. Their granddaughter plays a major part in the story which co-stars Red Buttons as Mitchum’s old Army buddy.