Oscar Profile #494: Van Heflin

Born December 13, 1908 in Walters, Oklahoma, Everett Evan (Van) Heflin was the son of a dental surgeon and his wife. His younger sister was the actress Frances Heflin. He received a BA from the University of Oklahoma in 1932 after he had already appeared on Broadway.

Heflin made his Broadway debut in 1928 in Mr. Moneypenny, after which he appeared in several more productions before being noticed by Katharine Hepburn in The End of Summer in 1936, which led to a contract with RKO and a role in Hepburn’s A Woman Rebels later that year. He alternated the next two years between Broadway and Hollywood, appearing on screen in a supporting role in 1939’s Back Door to Heaven before returning to Broadway to play the role that would later be played by James Stewart in the film version of Hepburn’s The Philadelphia Story. Joseph Cotten had what would become Cary Grant’s screen role and Shirley Booth had the role that would become Ruth Hussey’s.

Moving to MGM, Heflin had supporting roles in 1941’s Santa Fe Trail starring Errol Flynn and Olivia de Havilland, The Feminine Touch starring Rosalind Russell and Don Ameche and H.M. Pulham, Esq. starring Hedy Lamarr and Robert Young. He began 1942 in support of Robert Taylor and Lana Turner in Johnny Eager for which he would win his first and only Oscar.

The actor had leading roles in 1942’s Kid Glove Killer and Tennessee Johnson in which he played President Andrew Johnson. In 1943, he starred opposite Judy Garland in Presenting Lily Mars before entering military service during World War II.

Heflin’s post-war films included such successes as The Strange Love of Martha Ivers, Till the Clouds Roll By, Possessed, Green Dolphin Street, The Three Musketeers, Act of Violence, Madame Bovary and East Side, West Side.

Roles in the early 1950s were less plentiful, but beginning in 1953, Heflin’s career was back on track with major roles in such well-remembered 1950s films as Shane, Woman’s World, Black Widow, Battle Cry, Count Three and Pray, Patterns, 3:10 to Yuma, Gunman’s Walk and They Came to Cordura.

In the 1960s, he was still in demand as evidenced by his roles in 5 Branded Women, Under Ten Flags, Cry of Battle, The Greatest Story Ever Told, Stagecoach and The Big Bounce. In 1970, he was a major part of the ensemble in the blockbuster hit, Airport.

Heflin was married twice and had three children. His family, including his two daughters and his son, two grandchildren, niece Marta Heflin and nephew Jonathan Kaplan are all actors. Kaplan is also a producer-director.

Van Heflin died July 23, 1971 at 62.

ESSENTIAL FILMS

JOHNNY EAGER (1942), directed by Mervyn LeRoy

Robert Taylor in arguably his best role ever and Lana Turner in her biggest role to date were the stars promoted as TNT in this classic gangster film directed by LeRoy who had directed Taylor in Waterloo Bridge and Escape before concentrating on the Greer Garson classics, Blossoms in the Dust, Random Harvest and Madame Curie. Taylor in a rare bad guy role, Turner, Edward Arnold, Robert Sterling, Glenda Farrell, Barry Nelson and the rest of the cast are fine, but Heflin tops them all as Taylor’s only friend, the role that won him his Oscar.

SHANE (1953), directed by George Stevens

After a dry spell that lasted four years or so, Heflin had what many consider the best role of his career as the hardworking head of a family of homesteading farmers that is helped by a weary gunfighter in this beautifully filmed western with Alan Ladd at the top of his game as the gunfighter, Jean Arthur in her last film role as Heflin’s wife and Oscar nominees Brandon De Wilde as Heflin and Arthur’s impressionable young son and Jack Palance as the merciless gunslinger hired by the ranchers to drive the farmers out. Lloyd Griggs’ breathtaking Oscar-winning cinematography enhances this meticulous work considerably.

BLACK WIDOW (1954), directed by Nunnally Johnson

One of a handful of films directed by prolific writer Johnson (The Dark Mirror, Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation), this one finds Heflin in one of his more sophisticated roles as a famed Broadway producer stalked by an ambitious young writer (Peggy Ann Garner) who is murdered in his apartment. Is the murderer Heflin, his wife (Gene Tierney), the famous star who lives downstairs (Ginger Rogers), her husband (Reginald Gardiner) or someone else? George Raft is the detective on the scene. Virginia Leith, Otto Kruger, Cathleen Nesbitt and Skip Homeier also have prominent roles.

3:10 TO YUMA (1957), directed by Delmer Daves

An early film from the work of prolific writer Elmore Leonard (Get Shorty, Out of Sight), this intense western in a which a small-time rancher (Heflin) is tasked with the job of ensuring that a notorious outlaw (Glenn Ford) is put on a train that will take him to his long-awaited trial in another town. Richard Jaeckel is Ford’s second in command who leads the charge in freeing him. Christian Bale had Heflin’s role in James Mangold’s 2007 remake with Russell Crowe in Ford’s role and Ben Foster in Jaeckel’s. This earlier, more modest version is equally fine.

AIRPORT (1970), directed by George Seaton

The big box-office hit of 1970 from Arthur Hailey’s best-seller received an incredible ten Oscar nominations including Best Picture, most of which it didn’t deserve. It had a high-powered cast led by Burt Lancaster, Dean Martin, Jean Seberg and Jacqueline Bisset, but it was the supporting cast that made it interesting, particularly George Kennedy, Helen Hayes, Maureen Stapleton and Heflin who plays the mad bomber married to Oscar nominee Stapleton who is seated on the plane next to Hayes, who was the film’s sole Oscar winner for her disarming performance. It would be Heflin’s last theatrical film.