Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He is known for his antihero roles and film noir appearances. He received nominations for an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1984 and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 1992. Mitchum is rated number 23 on the American Film Institute's list of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.
Mitchum rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for The Story of G.I. Joe (1945). His best-known films include Out of the Past (1947), Angel Face (1953), River of No Return (1954), The Night of the Hunter (1955), Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison (1957), Thunder Road (1958), The Sundowners (1960), Cape Fear (1962), El Dorado (1966), Ryan's Daughter (1970), The Friends of Eddie Coyle (1973), and Farewell, My Lovely (1975). He is also known for his television role as U.S. Navy Captain Victor "Pug" Henry in the epic miniseries The Winds of War (1983) and sequel War and Remembrance (1988).
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Film critic Roger Ebert called Mitchum his favorite movie star and the soul of film noir: "With his deep, laconic voice and his long face and those famous weary eyes, he was the kind of guy you'd picture in a saloon at closing time, waiting for someone to walk in through the door and break his heart." David Thomson wrote: "Since the war, no American actor has made more first-class films, in so many different moods."
As a child, Mitchum was known as a prankster, often involved in fistfights and mischief. In 1926, his mother sent him and his younger brother to live with her parents on a farm near Woodside, Delaware. He attended Felton High School, where he was expelled for mischief. During his years at the Felton school, he ran away from home for the first time at age 11.
Mitchum left home at age 14 and traveled throughout the country, hopping freight cars and taking a number of jobs, including ditch digging, fruit picking, and dishwashing. In the summer of 1933, he was arrested for vagrancy in Savannah, Georgia and put in a local chain gang. By Mitchum's account, he escaped and hitchhiked to Rising Sun, Delaware, where his family had moved. That fall, at age 16, while recovering from injuries that nearly cost him a leg, he met 14-year-old Dorothy Spence, whom he would later marry.
By 1937, Mitchum had settled in Long Beach, California. His older sister, Julie, tried to return to show business and became a member of the Players Guild, a local theater group. Often accompanying her home after her rehearsals, he took an interest in the group's productions and became acquainted with her colleagues. With his mother's encouragement, Mitchum joined the Players Guild and made his stage debut in August 1937. He continued appearing in their productions and also wrote two children's plays. After Julie began working as a cabaret singer, he started writing lyrics for her and other performers. In 1939, he wrote and composed an oratorio that was presented at a Jewish-refugee-benefit show, produced and directed by Orson Welles.
In late 1939, Mitchum was hired by astrologer Carroll Righter as an assistant for an Eastern Seaboard tour. He returned to Delaware to marry Dorothy Spence in 1940 during this trip and then moved back to California with her. He quit his work as a writer for cabaret acts after a promised payment failed to materialize. Intending to provide a steady income for his family after his wife became pregnant, Mitchum took a job as a sheet metal worker at the Lockheed Aircraft Corporation during World War II. He acted part-time for a while, and his last stage appearance before his entrance into films was in 1941. The noise of the machinery at Lockheed damaged his hearing. Assigned to a graveyard shift, he suffered from chronic insomnia and went temporarily blind. Told by his doctors that his illness was caused by job-related anxieties, he left Lockheed.
Mitchum then sought work as a film actor. An agent he knew from his work in theater got him an interview with Harry Sherman, the producer of United Artists' Hopalong Cassidy Western film series, which starred William Boyd. In June 1942, Mitchum began his film career with a part as a minor villain in Border Patrol, the first of seven Hopalong Cassidy films he made that were released in 1943. That year, he appeared in a total of 19 films. His first non-Western was Follow the Band, a musical at Universal, and he went uncredited as a soldier in The Human Comedy, a major MGM picture starring Mickey Rooney. Other films in which he played supporting parts included a Laurel and Hardy comedy, The Dancing Masters, and two war films starring Randolph Scott, Corvette K-225 and Gung Ho!. Harry Cohn offered him a studio contract after viewing his performance in Columbia's musical Doughboys in Ireland. Mitchum, however, declined the offer.
Mitchum's first important role was in When Strangers Marry, a thriller directed by William Castle and released by Monogram in 1944. Opposite Dean Jagger and Kim Hunter, he played a salesman who helps his former girlfriend solve a murder mystery. Mitchum received positive reviews for his performance, and in retrospect, the film is considered a fine example of B movies. That same year, he was cast in a small role in the war film Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo, starring Van Johnson and Robert Walker and featuring Spencer Tracy in a guest performance. Director Mervyn LeRoy was impressed by Mitchum's talent and recommended him to RKO.
On September 1, 1948, during the rise of his career, Mitchum was arrested for possession of marijuana with actress Lila Leeds. While RKO could have canceled his contract, citing the morals clause, the studio chose to stand by him. He served for 50 days, split between the Los Angeles County Jail and a Castaic, California, prison farm, and was released on March 30, 1949. Life photographers were permitted to take photos of him mopping up in his prison uniform. He later told reporters that jail was "like Palm Springs, but without the riff-raff." Mitchum's conviction was later overturned by the Los Angeles court and district attorney's office on January 31, 1951, after being exposed as a setup.
1991
A lifelong heavy smoker, Mitchum died in his sleep at 5 a.m. on July 1, 1997, at his home in Santa Barbara, California, from complications of lung cancer and emphysema. His wife of 57 years, Dorothy, was by his side.
Mitchum's body was cremated and, on July 6, his ashes were scattered into the Pacific Ocean off the coast near his home. The private ceremony was attended by only his family members and his longtime friend Jane Russell. There is a cenotaph to him in his wife's family plot at the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Camden, Delaware. Dorothy died in 2014 (May 2, 1919, Camden, Delaware – April 12, 2014, Santa Barbara, California), aged 94. In accordance with their wishes, her ashes were also scattered at sea so that they could be symbolically reunited at Easter Island.
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- YIELDS
- 6
- COOK TIME
- 12 Min
Make room burritos, 'cause there's a new contender in town, and they're going by the name of Tex-Mex Hand Pies! These creamy hand pies are stuffed full of Tex-Mex favorites like salsa, chicken and lots of creamy cheese. You're going to wish you had more hands.
- 1/2 cup cream cheese, softened
- 1/2 teaspoon chili powder
- 1/2 teaspoon cumin
- 1/2 cup salsa
- 1/2 cup corn
- 1 (13.8-ounce) can refrigerated pizza crust
- 1 1/2 cup shredded cooked chicken breast
- 1/2 cup shredded Mexican cheese blend
- Preheat oven to 425º. Coat 2 baking sheets with cooking spray.
- In a small bowl, combine cream cheese, chili powder, and cumin; mix well and set aside. In another small bowl, combine salsa and corn.
- Unroll dough onto lightly floured cutting board and cut into 6 equal squares.
- Evenly spread cream cheese mixture onto each square, leaving a 1/2-inch border. Top 1/2 of each piece of dough evenly with chicken, salsa mixture, and cheese, then fold each into a triangle. Using a fork, press edges to seal. Place on baking sheets.
- Bake 12 to 14 minutes, or until golden brown. Serve warm.
Famous Lefties
